Hi anon z. Of course I won’t post anything if you don’t want it to be. 🙂

You’re right that Rana’s parents don’t seem that religious, not enough to try this anyway, but as I said before, I think they are very image-conscious. The shame of it is what they can’t stand, being talked about and shunned by the others in their community. They’re certainly not the type to stand up to others for Rana’s sake or to voluntarily withdraw because they don’t want to associate with those who’d badmouth their daughter. Not that I’m entirely sure Corrie grasps the distinction and most likely went with this storyline because they wanted to and were stuck with this pair, it’s not like they were going to bring in a third set of Muslims and have them go through the same thing.

It would be nicer to see an accepting Muslim family, but of the instances of Muslim LGBT characters I can think of, almost all of them HAVE been positive? It’s only the other soap EastEnders, from ages ago, where it was a similar drawn out negative reaction. And this seems important enough to show and without much harm to any of the characters, I think it’ll work out well in having all the good characters (the audience proxy, in this case) react so negatively that the audience can see how repulsive it is without having poor Rana actually being dragged away and being locked up. 

And yeah, people have such an odd idea of Pakistan. It can be awful for people in the wrong circumstances, but for most of us it’s a chill visit to a place with a really advantageous exchange rate and a lot of food available for delivery. Fun fact, I’m actually heading there for a couple weeks’ vacation soon, and I was applying for a Pakistani visa and this is the sight that greeted me. 😀