Ahmadinejad's Latest Anti-Gay Rant: Calls Homosexuality Ugly

[Jingthing]

Kudos to CNN’s Piers Morgan for coaxing out these gems:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwYPjpVDfWI&feature=player_embedded

Hmm. I wonder why Anderson Cooper didn't get the honor?

Interestingly Ahmadinejad's belief that homosexuality can be "instructed" out of gay people mirrors what U.S. presidential candidate Romney thinks as evidenced by his recent record of giving personal contributions directly to "cure the gays" organizations. But at least Romney doesn't favor stringing us up as happens in Ahmadinejad's fundamentalist Iran.

In response to a question about how Ahmadinejad would react if his own child was gay:

Proper education must be given ... the education system must be revamped.

Edited September 28, 2012 by Jingthing

[transam]

This shows what the civilized world is up against. The bloke is a numnut, l remember his stuff regarding the holocaust that ''never'' happened.

[Jingthing]

This shows what the civilized world is up against. The bloke is a numnut, l remember his stuff regarding the holocaust that ''never'' happened.

In my view, he actually represents a more moderate Iranian political perspective compared to other factions there. I don't think he is in any way insane. That's too easy a way to explain him. I think he is massively intelligent. That's not the same thing as being correct though! Edited September 28, 2012 by Jingthing

[transam]

This shows what the civilized world is up against. The bloke is a numnut, l remember his stuff regarding the holocaust that ''never'' happened.

In my view, he actually represents a more moderate Iranian political perspective compared to other factions there. I don't think he is in any way insane. That's too easy a way to explain him. I think he is massively intelligent. That's not the same thing as being correct though!

If your intelligent you do not deny fact unless the brain washing comes into play. A leader of a country should govern by facts, not religion and certainly not deny historical facts that the world knows happened. A liar cannot rule a country, BUT it does happens in other countries. To deny the holocaust as a myth is inexcusable.

[Jingthing]

Rationality, intelligence, and sanity aren't the same things. Each case is individual. I'm just saying I don't see any evidence that he is mentally ill. There are many examples in politics of messed up leaders who were insane, and sometimes not insane. For example Dick Nixon was massively intelligent and most likely clinically schizophrenic. It plays well for a leader of Iran to play games with denying the holocaust and demonizing gay people, so by doing that, he is making a rational decision for his domestic political gain regardless of what he actually believes. Of course I don't know, but I don't really believe he doesn't accept the historical facts of the holocaust (he seems too smart for that) but I do believe he is very much anti-gay.

Edited September 28, 2012 by Jingthing

[transam]

Nothing to do with being mentally ill, it's about someone governing a country who is ''governed'' by religion.

How can ANYONE deny the holocaust, to be honest l find it foolish to deny it, what gain does he have ?. Nothing to do with Iran, why deny it. I just don't understand that from someone you think is intelligent.

[Scott]

Ah.....this is the gay sub-forum....not the Holocaust sub-forum.

[BKKBobby]

Nothing to do with being mentally ill, it's about someone governing a country who is ''governed'' by religion.

How can ANYONE deny the holocaust, to be honest l find it foolish to deny it, what gain does he have ?. Nothing to do with Iran, why deny it. I just don't understand that from someone you think is intelligent.

In some quarters of the world you gain points by saying these foolish things. You would think that Ahmadinejad is hated in the arab world, cause of what you hear from the arab leaders and their media but he is really popular "in the streets" of the arab world cause they believe that he stands up against the west.

[transam]

Ah.....this is the gay sub-forum....not the Holocaust sub-forum.

oooop's, sorry, but my comments l feel apply.

[taiwanatoa]

Nothing to do with being mentally ill, it's about someone governing a country who is ''governed'' by religion.

How can ANYONE deny the holocaust, to be honest l find it foolish to deny it, what gain does he have ?. Nothing to do with Iran, why deny it. I just don't understand that from someone you think is intelligent.

Israel has nothing to do with Iran and the rest of the Middle East? Are you serious? Where have you been for the last half century or so?

[LeCharivari]

.... In my view, he actually represents a more moderate Iranian political perspective compared to other factions there.

....You would think that Ahmadinejad is hated in the arab world, cause of what you hear from the arab leaders and their media but he is really popular "in the streets" of the arab world cause they believe that he stands up against the west.

Both 100% correct - unlike those who have been "brainwashed" themselves and believe the brainwashing rather than any "facts" which are readily available if you look beneath some of the "rants".

Ahmadinehjad may not be popular in the West, and some of the reasons for that are valid while others are not, but the "facts" are that what he says about homosexuality and how it should be "treated" is EXACTLY what a considerable number of Americans including Mitt Romney and the heirarchy of his supporters have also said. No more and no less.

... and while I am not defending him the only cases of homosexuals being strung up in Iran have been where they have ALSO been convicted of charges which would receive the death penalty there, such as kidnapping, murder and rape. These are frequently reported in the West as cases where homosexuals are executed for sodomy, etc, but when the cases are reviewed in detail it is clear that there were additional offences which alone merited the death penalty. A prime example was that of Asgari and Mahoni in 2005, who were initially reported as being executed because they were gay teen lovers, while the reality was that they were convicted of being part of a five man gang who abducted a 13 year old boy from a shopping mall and gang raped him; a similar case occurred in September 2007 when it was widely reported that three men had been executed for sodomy, when the reality was that of six men executed three had been found guilty of drug-trafficking, rape and robbery and three guilty of sodomy, robbery and kidnapping. While the death penalty is a separate issue entirely, it is difficult to see how being gay can be a grounds for exemption.

.... and similarly, he has never denied the holocaust - he has consistently said that it is not his position to "judge" the holocaust, and that it should be legal to conduct research about it.

Before I'm strung up in my turn for supporting him, I'd just ask anyone wanting to do so to give a documented example of ANYONE executed in Iran solely for sodomy or homosexuality (or of ANYTHING he said actually denying the holocaust).

[LeCharivari]

Nothing to do with being mentally ill, it's about someone governing a country who is ''governed'' by religion.

Wouldn't that rule out someone who has sworn an oath to "sacrifice all that we possess, even our own lives if necessary, in sustaining and defending the Kingdom of God"?

Or someone whose prime quality, according to his chosen "running mate" is that he is "prayerful"?

Or someone who, even though the constitution specifically rules out any "religious test", has to follow the same religion as all their country's previous presidents if they are to have any chance of even being selected for election to govern?

Or, elsewhere, a country whose head of state was also the head of that country's church and whose religious beliefs were as important to her as her other duties?

[Jingthing]

Iran is a totalitarian Islamic fundamentalist regime and uses their version of Sharia law to judge moral crimes. How many gay people have actually been executed in Iran under these laws just for consensual adult sex acts is impossible to know. Why? As said, it is a totalitarian regime. I can't agree that Iran is equivalent to the American Christian dominated right wing in this regard. While a tiny minority of right wing fundamentalist Christian American activists are for the death penalty for gays and/or gay sex acts, certainly no candidate for president openly favoring that could be elected president or even nominated to the anti-gay republican party. Mr. Mitt Romney, no friend of mine, is most certainly not in favor of death penalty laws for gay Americans and/or gay sex acts. Gay Americans in many areas of the country may live in fear of homophobic violence but none are afraid of STATE sanctioned executions for gay sex acts. I think it is fair to assume that Ahmadinejad hasn't expressed any objection to status quo of the Iranian Sharia law. Obviously laws on the books and enforcement are different things, but there is plenty of documentation that shows clearly that Iran is a very bad place for openly gay men.

BTW, whatever happened to these four gay Iranian men sentenced to death in Iran? I only find links about their sentencing, nothing about whether the sentence was carried out.

http://www.huffingto..._n_1515207.html

The four men -- identified by the Human Rights Activist News Agency in Iran as Saadat Arefi, Vahid Akbari, Javid Akbari and Houshmand Akbari -- are set to be hanged after their guilty verdict was approved recently by high court judges.

The Iranian legal situation for gays is ... complicated.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) in its 2011 - We are a Buried Generation: Discrimination and Violence Against Sexual Minorities in Iran- stated that because trials on moral charges in Iran are usually held in closed sessions, it is difficult to determine what proportion of those charged and executed for same-sex conduct are gay and in what proportion the alleged offense was consensual.

Because of the lack of transparency, Human Rights Watch said: ‘It cannot be ruled out that Iran is sentencing sexual minorities who engage in consensual same-sex relations to death under the guise that they have committed forcible sodomy or rape.’

The issue of the death penalty for same-sex acts is further compounded by the fact that the Iranian legal code does not differentiate between rape and homosexual acts.

http://www.gaystarne...ed-sodomy120512 Edited September 28, 2012 by Jingthing

[LeCharivari]

Gay Americans in many areas of the country may live in fear of homophobic violence but none are afraid of STATE sanctioned executions for gay sex acts. I think it is fair to assume that Ahmadinejad hasn't expressed any objection to status quo of the Iranian Sharia law.

An incorrect assumption. Ahmadinejad has made his views on homosexuality very clear, but that does not include execution:

"No, there is no law for their execution in Iran. Either they were drug traffickers or they had killed someone else. Those who kill someone else or engage in acts of rape could be punished by execution. Otherwise, homosexuals are not even known who they are to be hung. ... So, we don’t have executions of homosexuals. Of course, we consider it an abhorrent act, but it is not punished through capital punishment. It’s basically an immoral act. There are a lot of acts that can be immoral, but there’s no capital punishment for them. In Iran, it’s considered as a very unlikable and abhorrent act. People simply don’t like it. Our religious decrees tell us that it’s against our values, and all divine laws, actually, believe in the same. Who has given them permission to engage in homosexual acts? It’s considered as an abhorrent act. It shakes the foundations of a society, the family foundation. It robs humanity. It brings about diseases. It should be of no pride to the American society to say that they defend homosexuals and support it. It’s not a good act, in and by itself, to then hold others accountable for banning it. And it’s not called freedom, either. Sure, if somebody engages in an act in their own house without being known to others, we don’t pay any attention to that. People are free to do what they like in their private realms. But nobody can engage in what breaks the law in public.”

He may be lying, of course, but what he says is broadly similar to what many American Christian groups say.

The situation in Iran is far from being an isolated case - in neighbouring "liberated" Iraq, for example, current Iraqi law includes execution for homosexuals and the fatwa from the Iraqi Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is pretty clear: "The people involved should be killed in the worst, most severe way of killing".

[Jingthing]

He may be lying. That may be the understatement of the century.

It is certainly true that Iran isn't the only country in the world that is a horror show for gay people. But here we are talking about Iran, I think. One may question why so much attention on Iran these days. Well, it's a big important country, very visible in international news for a number of issues, with grand ambitions. There is a fair chance Iran will be at war soon with some western countries, but certainly not over their gay rights policies. However, their gay rights policies are symptomatic of their oppressive regime.

I don't think very many people would see any equivalence at all, in their wildest imagination, between Iran and the USA on gay rights issues.

In the USA, a slim majority now favor legal gay marriage. What percentage of Iranians do you reckon favor legal gay marriage?

Edited September 28, 2012 by Jingthing

[LeCharivari]

There is a fair chance Iran will be at war soon with some western countries ...

I think "fair" is taking the Israeli view (and their expectation of unquestioned Western support) rather far. While the USA may consider a military option, I think the appetite for another "war that cannot be won" has worn a little thin in the rest of the West and there is no possibility whatsoever that NATO would sanction a war with Iran. Britain, at the moment, is incapable of contributing much more than nominal support, even if the will existed, and Australia would be extremely unlikely to want to become actively involved.

... and, yes, "here we are talking about Iran". Their "gay rights policies" however, while draconian in the extreme, are nowhere near as severe either in practice or in principle as, say, their neighbour Iraq, so I do question why they are continually singled out for attention on this issue on this forum and by the American Pink Press.

[Jingthing]

By fair, of course I meant fair probability, not that it would be a wise idea or not for Iran or some western countries, which is a judgment above my pay grade.

Questioning noted.

[LeCharivari]

By fair, of course I meant fair probability, ....

That's what I took "a fair chance" to mean, JT, and what my comment was based on.

As in the chance or probability of a number of Western countries going to war with Iran is fair/reasonable/moderate/likely, while, IMHO, the probability of any Western country (except possibly the USA) going to war with Iran to prevent them getting a nuclear weapons capability is minimal/unlikely.

[Jingthing]

Fair chance doesn't mean likely. It means it is in the realm of real possibility. USA is a western country. I don't think this is the place to get into projections of which countries, if any, would ally with the USA and Israel in the event of a military conflict with Iran. It is my opinion such a conflict is in the realm of possibility. Thanks for sharing your opinion.

More on the topic, much of the world knows who Ahmadinejad is even if they will never be able to pronounce his name. He's a publicity hound. What percentage of the world knows who the leader of Iraq is? Ahmadinejad has a long history of making offensive public statements about gays to the western media. So of course the western media and the gay press is going to notice!

Edited September 30, 2012 by Jingthing

[Scott]

Off-topic posts deleted.