For some reason I don't seem to be able to leave comments at my own blog on Keloland. So I am posting a reply instead. Intrepid reader STUDENT left this comment to my recent posts here and here:
Ken: Were the young men gay? Yes. Were they hanged for being gay? No. Of course, all the pro-gay organizations love to blow the story out of proportion and twist it to fuel their agendas. You've jumped on the band wagon as well with statements such as this one at the end of your 09/21 post: "This is the world of today's academic left. A respected academic who says something unfashionable is silenced. A man whose government actually murders homosexuals, he is allowed to speak." I disagree with you here. Ayaz Marhoni and Mahmoud Asgari were executed for taking part with at least three others in abducting and gang-raping a 13-year-old boy at knife point. You were correct in mentioning that the crimes involved homosexual intercourse. You forgot to mention that the crimes also involved gang-rape at knife point. Simple as that. Now, let's say a young man is gay and kills someone and is sentenced to the death penalty here in the United States, technically we would be murdering a homosexual wouldn't we? Yes we would, but not simply because he was gay. We would be murdering him for the crime of murder, not for being gay. Don't get me wrong, it is clear that officially and in practice, there is discrimination against gays in Iran. However, systematic repression of gays doesn't seem to be an issue. Iran does not systematically persecute gays anymore. In Iran right now, there are gay websites, there are parks and also cinemas where everyone knows that these venues are meeting places for gays. Furthermore, it is legal in Iran for a transsexual to apply and receive a sex change and it is fully accepted by the government. There are even some pro-gay medias that write about gay issues. Having said this, the Islamic law still states that the punishment for being gay is death. It is not followed by the regime these days. It is what you would call a lemon law. Similiar to some of ours here in South Dakota. I enjoy reading your blogs, please keep them up.
Yes, I confess, I jumped on the bandwagon. That doesn't mean that the wagon wasn't going in the right direction. I gather that there is considerable doubt about the rape charge against the two young men, and reason to believe that their homosexuality left them guilty by default. Given the state of judicial proceedings in Iran, it is impossible to tell. While people must be presumed innocent until proven guilty, the opposite is true of due process.
It is probably fair to say that homosexuals have not been a major target of the regime. How could they be, when "there are no homosexuals in Iran"? On the other hand, the women stoned for adultery was sufficient to prove my case concerning double standards in the American academy.
Thanks for the correction, and I intend to keep it up.
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