I'm surprised no one mentioned the open forum at Columbia University.

I love his claims on homosexuality, 9/11 and the Holocaust.

Well of course they don't, just like Idaho doesn't have them either.

I caught about the last 10 minutes of the opening tirade from the President of Columbia University, and then watched the entire speech by Amadinejad and the subsequent questions from some of the students. I was fascinated by many things that he said.....the comments about no homosexuals in iran got hearty laughs from most of the crowd, but I thought if nothing else Amadinejad got quite a bit of sympathy given the same man who invited him to speak, practically ripped him a new one, in his opening remarks. Obviously Mamoud is rather ignorant to say the least. I pity anyone in Iran who is gay, it must be like the US back in the early 1900's. Amadinejad went out of his way I thought to mention how he feels women in Iran are highly respected and regarded, and looked up to, in his words....
There were quite a few questions he did not answer directly, there were some about the holocaust which were interesting, as he did not deny it happened in comments to a question. It made for a very interesting watch in my opinion.

Well if they keep hanging homosexuals in Iran his comments may become truth, or maybe just a few guys with a wide stance.

Oh damn! Well,that ruins everyone's hope of moving there!

The genocide against gays in Iran is truly criminal. Innocent people have been tortured, castrated and killed for being homosexual. Yet homosexuality is very very common in all Islamic countries. Most males in Islamic countries have at one time or another engaged in same sex contact prior to heterosexual marriage. This is common in all Islamic lands. Iran is one of the world's capitals for sex change operations. The Iranian state pays for these operations. The late Aylatollah Khomeni gave a fatwah that sex change operations were acceptable under Islam. Many men in Iran have had sex changes against their will. I don't want the U.S. to engage in a war with Iran, but it is no progressive country at all. The mullahs rule with an iron fist.

Homosexuality exists EVERYWHERE. It's part of the human condition. How societies respond and contextualize it is what's always at issue.

In Iran, as you state, they torture, castrate, hang, and stone homosexual people.

They are also terrorizing and murdering gay people in Iraq, but our closet lesbian Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is silent on this issue. Because gay people don't count or something?

So what's she basically saying about herself and her female "housemate"?

IRQO, the Iranian Queer Organization

Of course homosexuality exists everywhere. And in Islamic states if a man commits homosexual acts prior to heterosexual marriage it is acceptable as long as it is not publicly declared. Kind of like on the downlow. Homosexuality has a long cultural tradition in Islamic lands: eunchs being taken as concubines e.t.c. Iran is a patriarchal state that is misogynistic and homophobic. Both groups of people along with Bahais have been targeted.

Last night while channel surfing between the talking head programs, I paused for a minute on Glen Becks Show, whom I can't stand, but anyways, he had on a gay Iranian, during one segment, who talked about what can happen to one in Iran if you are found out to be gay. Talk about chills running down my spine. The word horrendous came to mind.

Let's remember that in much of the Muslim world, including those countries that some might call more socially evolved, it is still common practice to not only ridicule, denigrate and discriminate against gays, but also to persecute and torture. In Egypt within the past few years there were cases of police raiding gay bars, arresting men, and brutally torturing them until they named other gay men. On a trip to Istanbul last year I noted the abject fear that most gay men exhibited just walking into a gay bar, where they had to show documents bearing their names and addresses (I assume the documents were forged), and where the lights are always on high because to dim them invites police raids. Yet the European Community is silent, and Turkey continues on the path to entry in the EC alongside countries that profess to not tolerate social injustice. Yes, Iran is a terrible place to be gay, but I think it's only marginally worse than many other Muslim countries, where both the US and the EC turn a blind eye to it and categorize government-mandated systemic violations of human rights as a "cultural difference."

It's amazing the amount of atrocities that happen in every part of this world,including our own country at any given time.I've learned to never ask if it can get any worse because the answer always seems to be a proven yes.Civilization just keeps proving that it is NOT very civilized.It's all disgustingly depressing.

If I may borrow a phrase from Lewis Black, the Preisdent of Iran is "stone cold nuts".

For those that are interested there is a documentary (making the film festival rounds) about gays & lesbians in the Muslim world. I was able to see it at the Toronto film festival, with the director and some of the subjects in attendance. While not a great film (it was still quite good and, interestingly, produced by the guy who directed Trembling Before G-d, the documentary about LGBT orthodox Jews), it was still fascinating to glimpse the lives of people we know very little of, living in societies that are much more difficult than ours, where just being gay is a struggle (the film's title comes from the meaning of "jihad" as a ‘struggle’ or ‘to strive in the path of God’).

A Jihad for Love
Article on the film from The Guardian

Well, some Muslim countries like Indonesia, Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, and the Republican élite's favorite country, Dubai, as well as some of the former Soviet Muslim republics, none of them known for their human rights records overall, are far less extreme in terms of persecuting gays than other Muslim countries like the US's dear friend Saudi Arabia, in which GAYS ARE PUNISHED WITH DEATH if prosecuted. Also, Egypt has officially targeted and persecuted gay people, Iran has taken an extremist approach, in the "new" Iraq the Shiites and Sunnis are now targeting gays for persecution and execution, often gangland style, and in Afghanistan, the persecution under the Taliban was so horrifying it defies description. Yet BEFORE the Taliban and the nutcase Islamicists gained control, Afghanistan had a long tradition of male homosexuality and ephebophilia (I'm not endorsing this, mind you), that actually reappeared once the US ousted the Taliban.

We should also note that some Muslim regions of African countries, like Nigeria, are as extreme as some of the worst Muslim countries, and at the same time, some predominantly Christian countries, especially the ones that were former British colonies, like Jamaica, Uganda, Cameroon, etc., also have draconian anti-gay laws on the books and are virulently anti-gay. You can almost pinpoint the non-Muslim countries with the harshest anti-gay laws, because they once were British colonies. So it's not just the Muslims. Meanwhile, the UK, after its very disturbing and long anti-gay history, is now one of the more progressive countries in the world. So sometimes things do get better--after a long time, but still.

And of course many Islamic countries commit atrocities against women and small girls in the form of clitorectomy. Female genital mutilation is a global crime against women.

Speaking of Jamaica, why is it that I see Red Stripe beer sold in gay bars? You still can't find Coors anywhere, and the Coors people have fallen all over themselves to get in our good graces. Jamaica, its reggae singers and its citizens aren't anywhere close to mending their ways.

CBC - Out In Iran Part 1

CBC - Out In Iran Part 2

CBC - Out In Iran Part 3

CBC documentary on being gay and the gay rights movement in Iran. Originally aired in February the CBC re-ran the documentary this morning in response to the Iranian Presidents comments in NY.

That is so very sad.These people are so brave.

Puschkin, I would imagine there's a difference between a company whose executives have repeatedly pushed, advocated and sponsored anti-gay laws and action, like Coors and the Coors family, and Red Stripe, whose position on LGBT issues are unknown. (GLAAD? IGLHRC? What do they say about this?) Are the execs at Red Stripe anti-gay? It's worth finding out. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. That'd be like banning all US beer (or products of any sort) because we have virulent homophobes running our government. Don't forget that W and the GOP have repeatedly called for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage AND were against the legalization of gay sex that happened with Lawrence v. Texas. (What do the gay Republicans in the states that had those awful sodomy laws say about this? One former rightist poster on here felt Lawrence v. Texas was not a legitimate ruling.)

BTW, not all Jamaican people are anti-gay. In fact, the penultimate prime minister, P. J. Patterson, was comparatively more moderate on the issue of HIV prevention, and had a health minister who advocated it, though Patterson did zero nothing for LGBT people (But then he has also been rumored to be gay, which might in part be based on this and related policies of his.) Now that the left-leaning Labour Party controls the government there, it'll be interesting to see if they take a different approach.

NY Times: Despite Denials, Gays Insist They Exist, if Quietly, in Iran

Incredibly brave, on the part of the gay Iranians as well as the Canadian makers of the documentary. Anything done here, even on PBS and the more "liberal" press seems to me to pale in comparison.

Kudos to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

SNLs take on this BS. FLMAO!

Love it!!!!

In addition to re-broadcasting the 'Out in Iran' story last night, CBC's Evan Solomon interviewed Arsham Parsi of the Iranian Queer Organization for an update on some of the people shown in the original piece. If you've already watched the You Tube links listed above, just click on 'Out in Iran' and advance the slider to approximately the 20-minute mark to watch the update (about 4 minutes long).

http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/2007/09/093007_2.html#comments

Margaret Wente interviews Arshan Parsi in her column in the Globe today: A gay Iranian in exile

The website for the Iranian Queer Organization is irqo.net