The "LGBT Supporter" Claim
Unfounded
Claim
Fact
The affair takes place in January–February 2021. While the student protests that began after a rector was appointed to Boğaziçi University by the President were still going on, Alparslan Kuytul assessed the matter on the "Gündeme İslami Bakış" programme of 9 January 2021. Roughly a month later, on 5 February 2021, the newspaper Yeni Akit turned that assessment into the headlines "he made his side clear" and "LGBT supporter".
The sentence turned into a headline was this: among those taking part in the protest there may be atheists, there may be leftists, there may be LGBTI people. This is not a ruling of permissibility but an observation — it describes who might have taken part in a protest.
On the programme of 6 February 2021 Kuytul explained himself what he had meant:
"Is it possible for me to utter a word meaning 'A young person may be an atheist, may be LGBTI, it is permissible'?"
In the same talk he repeated that atheism is unbelief and that LGBT is forbidden, saying "I do not even need to explain it"; he recalled that his earlier answers on the subject are on record.
The whole matter is knotted in a single word: "may". In the sentence this word states a possibility — they may have taken part in that protest. The claim was built by turning a mood of possibility into a sentence of approval.
There are two further claims derived from the same statement: "he took his place alongside the Boğaziçi protesters" and "he showed tolerance towards those who insulted the Kaaba".
The sentence itself
The words spoken on the programme of 9 January 2021 are relayed in quotation marks in the written statement of the Furkan volunteers dated 6 February 2021 as follows:
"The views of those young people may differ. They may be atheists, they may be leftists, they may be LGBTI. But this is a struggle that has to be waged. The issue is not the appointment of a 'trustee rector' to Boğaziçi University. The issue is Turkey being driven towards dictatorship."
The subject of the sentence is the protest itself: an appointment being made to the administration of a university, and how this relates to the election–judiciary ground in the country. The views of those taking part appear in the sentence as a detail that does not change what the protest is.
"May" is possibility, not permission
The claim rests on a single play on words: reading the sense of possibility in the word may as though it were a sense of permission. On 6 February 2021 Kuytul made this distinction himself — he said that what he meant was "they may have taken part in that protest" and not "it is permissible to be so", and he added this:
"If a protest is legitimate it is legitimate; if it is not, then it is not anyway."
In other words, whether a protest is legitimate is determined not by looking at the identity of those taking part but by looking at the protest itself. The participation of people of differing views does not defile the protest — that is the logic of the sentence.
The ruling never changed
The day after the report appeared, on the programme of 6 February 2021, he was asked about this perception. In his answer he gave an unhesitating ruling on atheism and LGBT: atheism is unbelief, LGBT is forbidden. He added that he did not even see a need to explain it and that many of his earlier answers on the subject are on record.
This is the weakest side of the claim. If someone's view on a subject is being sought, the place to look is the sentences of ruling they framed on that subject, not a sentence of possibility framed while explaining something else. The sentences of ruling have been out in the open for years, and they all face the same way.
A correction left half-finished on air
A detail recounted on the programme of 6 February 2021 shows how the matter was put together. According to the account, an Akit TV presenter said live on air that Kuytul's words had been cropped and their meaning spoiled, and wanted to show the viewers the original recording. On a warning that came into his earpiece from the control room he broke off in mid-sentence, and the original recording was not broadcast.
This is an account showing that someone inside the institution noticed the situation; Kuytul too said of the presenter "it is clear that he is a well-intentioned person who sides with the truth". He recalled that the same method had been tried before and had produced no result once the full recordings of the talks were published.
What would have had to exist for the claim to be true?
The simplest way to weigh a claim is to ask what kind of evidence it would have left behind if it were true. If the claim of an "LGBT supporter" were true, we would have at least one of the following in hand: a sentence of ruling regarding LGBT as legitimate, a recommendation in that direction, or a word showing that the rulings given earlier had been withdrawn.
There is none of this. The only thing there is a sentence listing who might take part in a protest, and the opposite ruling repeated in the same talk. The claim stands where the evidence is absent, by the headline standing in for the evidence.
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Why "Unfounded"?
Because there is no side of the claim that is true. There is neither a sentence presenting LGBT as legitimate nor a word later taken back. The full recording of the talk is out in the open, its subject is plain, and in the same talk the opposite ruling was openly repeated.
One single thing is left: a sentence of possibility in an assessment of a protest being turned, roughly a month later, into a newspaper headline.
Other claims derived from the same statement: "he took his place alongside the Boğaziçi protesters" · "he showed tolerance towards those who insulted the Kaaba"