Edit/update:
This is one of those old answers I don’t like so much any more.
I meant well here. And I was trying to thread a needle, encouraging people in the community toward treating gay Muslims with compassion and respect while nevertheless staying true to the traditional viewpoint. And to be fair, when I first wrote this, it was a mental stretch to get a lot of people in the community to even recognize the need to be civil to people as people. That’s still there today, but thankfully the notion of being compassionate and respectful on a human to human level is more common and understood now. The middle of the community seems to have arrived therein a lot of places.
So in recognition of that, I’m just going to add a much more streamlined and straightforward answer.
Yes.
I accept gay Muslims, just as I accept Muslims of all races and ethnicities, nationalities, of all genders, of all languages and cultures, of all eye and hair colours, as part of the natural diversity of God’s creation.
I leave the old answer as an artifact.
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Old answer:It's not black and white. It depends what you mean "accept" and it depends on what you mean by "Gay Muslim." I don't want to sound like Bill Clinton here, but there are different facets of these things, and some things you respond differently from others.
For example, if by gay you just mean, the person is attracted sexually to the same sex. Well, I can't cut off ties with someone over that. It's considered haram for two males or two females to actually be engaged in acts of physical intimacy together. But being attracted to it is not itself a sin. And if I stopped talking to anyone who was attracted to major sins, my life would be quite quiet.
And then the question is, it just an attraction to these acts? Or does the person act on the urges?
If so, is the person being discreet about it, so it's not publicly known in the community? So that people are not going to casually hear about it or witness things about it without going to the trouble to ask or investigate it? If it's out of sight, I can keep it out of mind. If he's not going out of his way to talk about his sex life in front of me, I can pretend his roommate is just a roommate. I'm religiously required to assume the best of a fellow believer.
We all have our urges to things we're not supposed to do, and none of us is really perfect. If someone is trying to battle that, but comes up short, who am I to judge? It's a heavy test. But if the person is proud of it, and sees nothing wrong, well, I can be tolerant to the person as a human being, but I'm not going to accept the actions.
If the person has the tact and respect not to talk about it openly while I'm around, then maybe we can sit and be civil and work together on shared interests and projects. He doesn't talk about his bedroom activities, and I'll return the favor by sparing him the fire and brimstone speech he's probably heard a dozen times before (and which is not my style at all anyway). Mutual respect; a tactful two way street.
In that case we can find an equilibrium where I can separate the person and the actions and get along. I just can't give a green light to the actions any more than I can give a thumbs up to any other activity the religion forbids.
That's the basic dance involved from an ethical standpoint.
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