Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brought down the house during his speech at Columbia University.  When asked about the execution of two gay teenagers, his response elicited laughter.  “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country,” he proclaimed.  Well, duh!  If you come ‘out of the closet’ in Iran you might as well tighten the noose around your own neck.  It has been reported by human rights groups that over 4000 men, women, & children have been executed for being gay since the Shah’s exile in 1979. 

Consensual gay sex in any form is punishable by death in the Islamic Republic of Iran. According to the website Age of Consent, which monitors such laws around the world, in Iran "Homosexuality is illegal, those charged with love-making are given a choice of four death styles: being hanged, stoned, halved by a sword, or dropped from the highest perch. According to Article 152, if two men not related by blood are discovered naked under one cover without good reason, both will be punished at a judge's discretion. Gay teens (Article 144) are also punished at a judge's discretion. “

Consider the execution of two teenagers accused of homosexual acts by officials of the Islamic Republic in the northeastern city of Mashhad. On July 19, 2005, authorities executed the accused in the Taliban fashion of public hanging. "They admitted having gay sex (probably under torture) but claimed in their defense that most young boys had sex with each other and that they were not aware that homosexuality was punishable by death," according to the ISNA report.  "Prior to their execution, the gay teenagers were held in prison for 14 months and severely beaten with 228 lashes. The length of their detention suggests that they committed the so-called offenses more than a year earlier, when they were possibly around the age of 16,” the report states.

I repost the photos of these young men in response to President Ahmadinejad’s comments. I also post these heart-wrenching images because of the climate of intolerance that continues to grow stronger here in south Florida, thanks to the unfounded and baseless accusations of Fort Lauderdale’s Mayor Jim Naugle regarding the LGBT Community.  I post these horrific image captures because of so called ministers like O’Neal Dozier, pastor of the Worldwide Christian Center, who continue to fan the flames of hate and violence towards our community with his interpretation of the Bible.  Most importantly, I post them to remember these two young lives, lost because of someone else’s religion.

The crowd at Columbia may have chuckled at Ahmadinejad’s reply but honestly, I don’t see anything funny.  I understand that there probably wasn’t any real appropriate response befitting of such a ridiculous proclamation.  But take another look at these photos.  Now, think about how few degrees of separation there exist between the thinking of Naugle, Dozier and the Iranian President.  Islamic Fundamentalist & Christian Fundamentalist are pretty scary.  Not only am I NOT laughing but I’m shaking in my boots!