Bahai' is probably the most tolerant of religions. Their various teachings do not condone homosexuality nor such things as Prue-marital or promiscuous sex, but they have a strict code of not condemning individual decision-making in regard to personal matters. Gay people can join Bahai.
This is from the official Baha'i website of the USA (link below):
"[Q]: What is the Baha'i attitude toward homosexuality?
[A]: Baha'i law limits permissible sexual relations to those between a man and a woman in marriage. Believers are expected to abstain from sex outside matrimony. Baha'is do not, however, attempt to impose their moral standards on those who have not accepted the Revelation of Baha?u?ll ah. To regard homosexuals with prejudice would be contrary to the spirit of the Baha'i teachings."
To me the key phrase is "To regard homosexuals with prejudice would be contrary to the spirit of the Baha'i teachings." In other words, though Baha'is do not condone homosexual acts, it is the act itself that's considered impermissible - not the person(s). It is not contradictory to love a person while still disagreeing with their actions and decisions.
As someone has already mentioned, gay people are allowed to join the Faith but once joined, are expected to follow its laws. Also, I think it's extremely important to point out that the Baha'i Faith as an institution does not take a political position on the current issues of gay rights in the US.
It depends on how you choose to identify Bah??? beliefs: if you believe that the Bah??? International Community of Haifa and ?Akk? (as it is known in Israel) headed by the Universal House of Justice on Mount Carmel constitutes the only valid form of the Bah??? Faith and that this cannot under any circumstances be challenged or changed, and if you also interpret the Bah??? Covenant (as do most mainstream Baha'is) as unswerving obedience and total submission to the Baha'i ecclesiastical authorities (the Universal House of Justice) then one must choose a life of chastity or pursue a life of affections fulfillment outside of the normative Bah??? community, which recognizes heterosexual marriage as the sole context for sexual activity (note that same-sex civil marriage is now legal in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, Norway, Sweden, South Africa and Nepal, with many other countries ready to adopt it).
If however this is not what you choose to believe then there are other options available for you to choose from: Both the Tarb?yat Bah??? Community and the Unitarian Bah??? Fellowship welcome gay men and lesbians (both singles and couples) as members; these faith communities do not attempt to micromanage the lives of gays and lesbians through "counseling," "sanctioning" (disenrolling) or otherwise silencing them. See for example:
http://unitarianbahai.org/
"We find community in the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) ... the Unitarian Bahai Fellowship welcomes openly gay and lesbian people."
No excuses, rationalizations, justifications, explanations, qualifications, rebuttals, quibbles, or spiritual window dressing: they openly accept single and partnered gay men and lesbians. That's it, period.
In the words of former Catholic and well-known actress Anne Hathaway: "The whole family converted to Episcopalianism after my elder brother came out. Why should I support an organization that has a limited view of my beloved brother?"
All *accredited* American medical and psychological institutions agree there's no medical, psychological, or social reason to believe that sexual conduct between persons of the same sex is immoral or unhealthy. That includes the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychoanalytic Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the National Association of Social Workers to name only a few. Only religious dogmatists think it immoral.
It would be wrong to assume that Bah??u?ll?h (the prophet-founder of the Bah??? Faith) failed to mention homosexuality due to his ignorance of such matters. In his Kit?b-i-Aqdas (Most Holy Book), Bah??u?ll?h explicitly forbade pederasty, but Shogh? Effend?, the Guardian of the Baha?i Faith, is presumed to have interpreted this (in a letter written on his behalf [not all of which letters were as carefully scrutinized as one is often told they were]) to imply a general prohibition on all forms of homosexual activity. He did not, however, wish Bah???s to treat the words written by his secretaries as possessed of the same authority as his own letters: they are authoritative for the person to whom they are addressed in the situation in question, but they were not intended to establish general principles universally applicable to particular situations.
Gays and lesbians who wish to self-identify as Bah??? without living in the closet or allowing, accepting, condoning, or enabling toxic, abusive, disrespectful, non-honoring attitudes and behaviors to continue now have at least one truly viable alternative to choose from (the Unitarian Bah??? Fellowship), should they wish to do so. The choice is entirely theirs to make. Those who knowingly choose to join a religious organization or faith community which teaches that the only acceptable form of sexual expression is within heterosexual marriage bear the full responsibility for their choice.
[Note: Although all the existing evidence is anecdotal and so inconclusive, it should be noted that Ruhi Afnan, Shoghi Effendi's first cousin, made similar allegations about Shoghi Effendi's sexuality, as did Fayzullah Sobhi. The late US NSA archivist, Jackson Armstrong-Ingram, also confirmed the existence of longstanding rumors about Shoghi Effendi's homosexuality.]
Michael Zargarov (ex-Bahai)
August 22ND, 2009.
Greetings all.
About 20 years ago I was introduced to Mildred Mottahedeh at a conference in Arizona. Hand of the Cause Bill Sears introduced us because he knew I yearned to teach the faith in Eastern Europe, and he knew that Mildred had a particular interest there too. Later in 1990, at her suggestion, I pioneered to Prague, Czechoslovakia. I was there 18 months, and traveled from Prague to Russia, and to Alma Ata, Kazakhstan in order to visit with and help teach among long-out-of-contact believers. Still later, at various times, I was hosted for dinner at Mildred's sumptuous apartment overlooking the United Nations complex in NYC. Once in late 1992 I took Mildred to a concert of Beethoven's 9th Symphony at the Lincoln Center. On the way we stopped at a drugstore. When she came back to the car, Mildred showed me a gold locket which held hair from Baha'u'llah. She told me that Shoghi had given it to her when she WITNESSED his marriage to Ruhiyyih. Mildred and her husband bought a limousine for Shoghi to use, which he later loaned to Ben Gurion when "Israel" was established.
Mildred Mottahedeh had known May Maxwell since the 1920s. They were close confidants and best friends. Before Violeta Nakhjavani took over as "companion" to Ruhiyyih, Mildred held that honor.
Mildred and I were very close. She ASKED me if I "struggled with being gay". When I admitted that I did, she revealed to me that Ruhiyyih had intimated to her that Shoghi was homosexual himself, and hated himself because he "fell so short of what was expected of him as a member of Baha'u'llah' s family". Ruhiyyih told Mildred that their marriage had been arranged to "help" Shoghi "straighten himself out". (It is purely MY conjecture that Ruhiyyih was Lesbian. I just saw such a Bull-Dyke everytime I saw her, and her relationship with Violeta seemed obvious.) Mildred told me that she had revealed that long-held secret because she hoped it would one day help other gay baha'is to realize that they were not struggling alone; indeed that the "Center of the faith" had struggled against the same "affliction" . Mildred made me swear NEVER to reveal what I knew until AFTER her death. I kept the promise.
In regards to the Baha'i faith?
