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When I heard about Unity Mosque I could not believe it.

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A gay imam.

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Women leading the prayer.

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Women don't have to cover up when they're praying?

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I'm like now this is an Islam that anyone told me about.

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Some folks call to the Unity Mosque a gay mosque

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sort of to marginalize it.

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The reality is the space was not just created for LGBT muslims

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but for the fullness of humanity

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Black, Brown, Queer, people go by "they"

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people from different walks of life

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It's great to come together to sort of bring each other up

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and I always feel lighter afterwards.

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One time I had gone to the mosque that my dad goes to

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And I was telling him how friendly they were

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And my dad said if they knew who you were they'd look down on you

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He's right. They would look down on me.

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How can I be close to God,

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How can I pray,

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How can I ask for help from the community

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When if they knew who I was they'd look down on me

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I have been to Mecca.

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Troy and I had to hide and lie about our relationship

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the whole time that we were there

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Here we are in the house of God

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and we have to lie in order to be safe.

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When I was about 15, 16 years old I left home.

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I basically cut ties with my family.

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I always felt like there was no space in Islam for me

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'Cause I felt impure.

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It's so ingrained in us, right?

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That you can't be gay and muslim.

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For the first time in my life I found a space where you can come as you are.

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When we started the Unity Mosque we wanted to create a space

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That people didn't have to leave a part of who they were are at the door

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Before they entered into the sacred space.

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We tend to prioritize women or women-identified persons leading prayer

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just because it's so paradigm-shifting.

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The adhan is the call to prayer.

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In our religion it has to be this man of God, this man who is pure.

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In no muslim countries would you ever hear a woman do the call to prayer.

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Before coming to Unity Mosque I didn't even know that

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Anyone would find me worthy of doing the azan, the call to prayer.

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Who me?

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(Call to Prayer)

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I think it's cool that somebody even made me feel like I was worthy of that.

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Everybody has something to teach

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And everybody has something to learn

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And we all have something to unlearn

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The Prophet, peace be upon him, the Prophet Muhammad

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The earth is a mosque for you.

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Over the last ten and a half years

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Thousands of people have gone through our space.

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A lot of the folks who come to us

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have been traumatized in the name of religion

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I was in a pretty dark place when I first started going to the mosque.

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I had previously been dating somebody who was abusive

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And they threatened to out me to my parents.

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And sometimes the mosque was the only thing

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that would getting me out of bed.

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It was so bad that I was actually hospitalized for suicidal reasons.

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During this whole course of events.

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I don't know if I would still be a muslim if I didn't have a space like this.

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It's helped preserve my spirituality and my faith.

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Faith is a social enterprise

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The Prophet Muhammad and his followers went from Mecca to Medina

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Because in Medina they had community.

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They were coming out.

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And coming out into community.

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Some people tell us "that's not Isalm"

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"You're being heretical"

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"You're creating something new"

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"Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah"

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We're here to say "No"

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We're all here from God.

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Allah in chapter 49:13 says,

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I created you different nations and tribes

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So that you can know and learn from each other.

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So it's a competition to be better.

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Not to be self-congratulatory—to sit and go "I am better than you."

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You're not.

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I also send a fatiha of gradittude for this space.

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And the beautiful community we have here.

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And how special of a place this is.

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And for how important it is for us to keep coming together.

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And elevating each other and supporting each other.

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I'm emotional because I'm happy not because I'm sad.

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The Unity Mosque is creating a reformation in Islam.

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It's history in the making.

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For me Islam is not this big,

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It's something that's organic, it's dyamic, it's fluid

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And Islam continues to grow and to evolve.

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We're coming to pray

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We're coming to be together in community and help heal each other.

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At the end of the day, it is all about love.

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So I want you to take the Azan and make it your own.

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And I want you to rock it out one of these days.

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I can do that. I was actually thinking...

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Call to Prayer (singing)