Prayer: Soho Islamic Centre in Berwick Street

• I AM moved to respond to the letter from “an LGBT resident of Westminster” (There are objections to a mosque at the Trocadero, June 5), if only because s/he singled me out (while withholding their own identity).

In the Extra of May 29, my quote about “pseudo-concern” was included in an article about a planning application for a mosque in the Trocadero.

This mosque application has been the target of a negative leaflet campaign, delivered to Soho residences, by a group who have very carefully left no clues to their identity on their literature.

Their anti-mosque leaflet appealed on behalf of (among others) the LGBT community who, they were sure, would feel uncomfortable about having a mosque on their (our) doorstep.

My sarcastic response was a comment on bigots being suddenly concerned about LGBT sensitivities: queers have traditionally been targeted by right-wing bigmouths, but it seems the islamophobes who printed and distributed the leaflets, besides assuming that LGBTs share their islamophobia, are now worried on our behalf.

Well I never!

Last week’s concerned letter sounded every bit as islamophobic as the leaflets opposing the application.

I wonder if this Westminster LGBT resident is aware that for years there has been a popular and well-used mosque right in the heart of Soho on Berwick Street.

Speaking as a local LGBT resident who is just a stone’s throw away, I can assure the worried letter writer that myself, and all the other homosexuals who live around the Islamic Centre, are not in the least bit perturbed by having Muslims around, even on Fridays when midday prayers spill out into the street.

DAVID GLEESON,
W1