A jihad for love

A ground breaking documentary has just screened at the Sydney Mardi Gras:

"Chop off their heads and throw them off a mountain," someone suggests. "Cut off their arses," says another. These are some of the reactions to homosexuality within Islam depicted in the documentary A Jihad For Love. In some parts of the world, those responses are made manifest as beatings, imprisonment, and even the death penalty.

And yet the film opens with some words from the Koran which are part of the Muslim call to prayer. It is a remarkably traditional invitation into this intimate study of the lives of gay and lesbian Muslims.