Gay soap storyline: TV complaints and the right to offend

Last year, for example, 200 people complained about the appropriateness of an EastEnders storyline which featured a 15 year-old girl who had been groomed by her mother's boyfriend since she was 12. A month later over 100 people complained when a Muslim character in the same programme broke his fast during Ramadan.

What about homosexuality? Consider the intense media hype fifteen years ago when Brookside's Anna Friel kissed her best friend in the UK's first ever pre-nine-o'clock watershed lesbian kiss. Today, gay storylines are ten-a-penny in British soaps ...

EastEnders has announced that next month's plot will involve an interfaith gay relationship - between a Muslim and a cultural Christian. Newcomer to the square Syed Masood is set to fall for Walford's only openly gay man Christian Clarke and the pair will share an on-screen kiss.

Clarke's last on-screen kiss with then boyfriend Lee offended Walford's resident busybody Dot Cotton - and apparently nearly 150 members of the British public too. Reactions to Masood and Clarke's kiss will be interesting.   

Ashgar Bukhari, co-founder and spokesperson for the Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK (MPAC UK) - a Muslim organisation which claims to "defend civil liberties" - ironically had this to say on the matter yesterday:

"The Muslim community deserves a character that represents them to the wider public because Islamophobia is so great right now.

"There's a lack of understanding of Muslims already and I think EastEnders really lost an opportunity to present a normal friendly Muslim character to the British public."

So, what, gay Muslims are abnormal and unfriendly then?

Why does the BBC - and other mainstream media - continue to give a platform to bigots like Bukhari, a man who glorifies terrorism, has donated money to holocaust denier David Irving and who is banned from UK campuses for his virulent anti-Semitism?

Isn't it about time the UK media realised - as the EastEnders scriptwriters have - that British Muslims are not a monolithic bloc and deserve better than to spoken for by retrograde self-appointed "community leaders"?

EastEnders executive producer has defended the storyline saying it is important for soaps to tackle issues which reflect real life. "This isn't a moral tale of right or wrong; it's very much a human interest story where a young man struggles with the conflict between his faith and his feelings," he added.

Granted, EastEnders - where everyone seems to be related, have slept together or have at the very least attempted to kill one another - is not known for its realism. However, the story of a young man trapped between fulfilling his own wishes and those of his family, who are keen to see him settled down with a "good woman", is one I think many will relate to.

Yusuf Wehebi, from Imaan, a Muslim LGBT support organisation, would agree.  "It is entirely possible to be Muslim and gay and there's many of us in Britain today," he said.

"It is high time that the invisible minority became a visible minority. It is great that the BBC have had the courage to raise such an important social issue in our society today."

He is right. Attitudes towards homosexuality in the UK are still far from where they should be. As a Stonewall spokesperson said today, "The law has changed, but society needs to catch up." Last month's Gallup poll - a global study of interfaith relations - found that only a slight majority of the general British public (58%) feels that homosexuality is morally acceptable. Interestingly, not one of the 500 British Muslims surveyed agreed.

 The BBC has, in the past, been accused of treading softly around religious and cultural issues. Last year, for example, comedian Harry Enfield was forced to scrap two sketches - a sex-crazed Muslim hoodie and a paedophile Catholic priest - that satirised religion after the BBC said "it might cause trouble."

But isn't it exactly the issues that might "cause trouble" - such as Muslim homosexuality - that need to explored openly? Literature and the Arts - if Eastenders can be included in this category - have a long history of satirising society and forcing people to rethink the status quo.