(Houston Chronicle) It was the day of the funeral.
Yasmin Al-Zibdeh was home with her two sisters and mom, waiting for a phone call from their dad to tell them to come down to the mosque. She thought members of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston were already washing and preparing the body of her younger brother, Khaled, who died two days earlier at 33 years old. She was mentally preparing herself to visit his body in a casket at the mosque before he was buried at the ISGH’s exclusive Muslim cemetery.
But then her youngest sister, Jawaher, received an unexpected call from a cousin. “I saw the horror in her face,” Yasmin recalled. “It almost looked like somebody else had passed away.” Jawaher ran to a closet. Yasmin followed her, asking what happened. “They don’t want to wash his body because he’s gay,” Jawaher said, her sister remembered.
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