Homosexuality in Islam: Letter Pt 5

Homosexuality - being the 5th part of a letter to my Muslim convert friend. You can tell this topic really riles me...
The way that this is dealt with in Islam, perhaps more than any other issue, makes me angry and frustrated and convinces me that your God is indeed vengeful and cruel. Please forgive me therefore if this seems a rather heated riposte!
The Qur’an rather vaguely, but the ahadith very specifically, make clear that homosexuals who enjoy a sex life are to be punished (variously, according to which hadith one reads - but all such punishments are severe and most are fatal).
Note: I am aware that the ahadith vary in reliability. I have tried to restrict myself therefore to Sahih" ahadith (as I understand it, ones that are strong in their chain and extremely likely to be the exact words of the Prophet)

You suggest that it is very unlikely that the prescribed punishment would ever be carried out since the act of sodomy needs to be witnessed by four people. In that case the ruling is hardly the deterrent you suggest it is. What is the point of having a law that any sane person can see is laughable. If that really were the extent of the rules/laws governing gay sex in Islam, then homosexuals would have nothing to fear. They could, to be blunt, bang away in private to their hearts’ content. Are we to assume, then, that gays in Islamic countries feel free to enjoy their sex lives because it is so unlikely that four independent witnesses will be present for the act of penetration? Is this a ruling that is regarded by Muslims as an anachronistic left-over from more barbaric times so that gays are now left in peace as long as they don’t sodomise each other in public? A brief trawl through some Islamic sites suggests otherwise. I quote from http://islamqa.com/en/ref/38622,
(but I could have taken my pick from tens of similar sites all delighting in their hatred of gays and quoting Allah as their divine justification... )
“Praise be to Allaah. Firstly: The crime of homosexuality is one of the greatest of crimes, the worst of sins and the most abhorrent of deeds, and Allaah punished those who did it in a way that He did not punish other nations. It is indicative of violation of the fitrah, total misguidance, weak intellect and lack of religious commitment, and it is a sign of doom and deprivation of the mercy of Allaah. We ask Allaah to keep us safe and sound”
 In any case, I think you are confusing your “four witnesses” with a reference to adultery, but there appear to be so many differing and bizarre punishments for sexual behaviour other than that considered “normal” in the ahadith, it is understandable.

More tomorrow...