Gay Teens Executed In Iran

[In My Memory]

Gay Teens Executed In Iran:

ANKARA, 25 Jul 2005 (IRIN) - Human rights groups the world over have strongly condemned the recent execution of two gay teenagers in northeastern Iran.

 

"It's entirely unacceptable that people are actually killed because of their sexuality," Kursad Kahramananoglu, head of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), the oldest and only membership-based lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organisation in the world, maintained from Istanbul.

 

UK Gay News - Iran Executes Gay Teens By Hanging:

Two gay teenagers were publicly executed in Iran on 19 July 2005 for the ‘crime’ of homosexuality. The youths were hanged in Edalat (Justice) Square in the city of Mashhad, in north east Iran. They were sentenced to death by Court No. 19.

 

Iran enforces Islamic Sharia law, which dictates the death penalty for gay sex.

 

One youth was aged 18 and the other was a minor under the age of 18. They were only identified by their initials, M.A. and A.M.

 

They admitted – probably under torture, London-based gay human rights group Outrage! suggests – to having gay sex but claimed in their defence that most young boys had sex with each other and that they were not aware that homosexuality was punishable by death.

 

Prior to their execution, the teenagers were held in prison for 14 months and severely beaten with 228 lashes.

 

Their length of detention suggests that they committed the so-called offences more than a year earlier, when they were possibly around the age of 16.

 

... Under the Iranian penal code, girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 can be hanged.

 

Three other young gay Iranians are being hunted by the police, but they have gone into hiding and cannot be found. If caught, they will also face execution.

 

This is awful

[skuinders]

Some people are so ignorant.

Step 1: Abolish religion.

Step 2: Notice that homosexuality is innate and is not a choice.

 

LeVay's work studying the brain structure of homosexuals:

LeVay found a significant difference in the size of the INAH-3 in heterosexual men and homosexual men. The INAH-3 was two to three times larger in heterosexual men than in gay men. He found no significant difference in size between homosexual men and women. Regarding his results, LeVay said, "The discovery that a nucleus differs in size between heterosexual and homosexual men illustrates that sexual orientation in humans is amenable to study at the biological level."

[atinymonkey]

What is your point, skuinders?

[Aardvark]

 

This is awful

 

They just don't care about the opinions of the rest of the world. Everyone else is a decadent infidel, whilst they are the followers of the true faith.

 

Allahu Akbar.

[skuinders]

What is your point, skuinders?

Ask your average anti-gay bigot and they will say that it is either "sinful" or a choice that they disagree with. My point is: the former has no meaning and the latter makes an incorrect assumption. That is not to say that some people don't just hate for the hell of it - but such people are largely hopeless.

 

Edit: If you were asking why I quoted those findings, I was showing some evidence for the innateness of homosexuality.

[Mokele]

Skuinders, LeVay's work does not prove innateness, and changes in brain morphology *can* be the result of environment. I'm not saying it's not innate, only that LaVey's work isn't actually the best support for innateness.

 

Mokele

[skuinders]

Skuinders, LeVay's work does not prove innateness, and changes in brain morphology *can* be the result of environment.

I didn't say that this work proved anything. However, I believe LeVay's N was large enough to make the probability of unexpected correlation between brain samples significantly small.

 

I'm not saying it's not innate, only that LaVey's work isn't actually the best support for innateness.

You're probably right. This is just work that I knew about from previous reading.

[Thomas Kirby]

We've got people all over the world who think that homosexuality is worse than this horrible barbaric violence that they use against homosexuals and people of other races and religions. Why doesn't someone try to find out what is wrong with THEIR brains?

[Skye]

Because mice don't hang other gay mice.

[atinymonkey]

That's because the gay mice have all the best cheese partys.

[Callipygous]

Ask your average anti-gay bigot and they will say that it is either "sinful" or a choice that they disagree with.

 

actually, i find the most frequent response is more along these lines: "the gay pride parade" and gay rights movement in general. is there a "straight pride parade"? why does it need to be thrown up in peoples faces? fine, your gay, congratulations, why does that need to end up as a parade going down my street?

 

second place is "sinful"

[Mokele]

actually, i find the most frequent response is more along these lines: "the gay pride parade" and gay rights movement in general. is there a "straight pride parade"? why does it need to be thrown up in peoples faces? fine, your gay, congratulations, why does that need to end up as a parade going down my street?

 

These parades are needed because people need to see that 'gays' are not just a nebulous term without a face, they need to see it's their friends, neighbors, kids, co-workers, etc. It is statistically much more likely for someone to support homophobic views if they don't know someone who is gay in person (it basically works the same way as racism). It also is important because it challenges the inbuilt social assumptions that everyone should be considered straight unless proven otherwise and that the only people for whom that doesn't apply are interior decorators, male hairdressers, etc. These parades exist to show society that the gay population of the area is real, large, not ashamed, not going away, and not who you think of automatically. Without being able to put faces to names, people will asume gays are yet another minority group whose rights can be trampled based on ancient prejudices.

 

As for straigh-pride parades, they'd be useless, since straights are not (as a class) opressed or discriminated against, are considered the default and thus don't need to shout in order to be visible, and are highly numerous. If you wanted to, fine, everyone should be proud of their sexuality, but it'd basically be a pointless waste of time.

 

Mokele, who's marched in gay pride parades before.

[timo]

I think it´s kind of funny that in the german press it was said that they were accused of robbery, drinking alcohol and "sexually attacking" (in lack of a better translation) a 13 year old boy, not of having sex with each other.

[donkey]

oh man, that's horrible

 

yay for liberal, secular democracy!

[Callipygous]

These parades are needed because people need to see that 'gays' are not just a nebulous term without a face, they need to see it's their friends, neighbors, kids, co-workers, etc. It is statistically much more likely for someone to support homophobic views if they don't know someone who is gay in person (it basically works the same way as racism). It also is important because it challenges the inbuilt social assumptions that everyone should be considered straight unless proven otherwise and that the only people for whom that doesn't apply are interior decorators, male hairdressers, etc. These parades exist to show society that the gay population of the area is real, large, not ashamed, not going away, and not who you think of automatically. Without being able to put faces to names, people will asume gays are yet another minority group whose rights can be trampled based on ancient prejudices.

 

the stuff most people associate the gay pride parade with is not going to help people think of them as just normal folks you live next door to.

 

As for straigh-pride parades, they'd be useless, since straights are not (as a class) opressed or discriminated against, are considered the default and thus don't need to shout in order to be visible, and are highly numerous. If you wanted to, fine, everyone should be proud of their sexuality, but it'd basically be a pointless waste of time.

 

which is more of the stupid, backwards thinking people always use in regard to minority rights. if you want gays to be thought of as equal, and have all the same rights, what needs to happen is i need to never hear about it. why should i? why do you need to be visible as a homosexual? why cant you just be visible as another us citizen? if im at a party and you say "and this is my partner, john" fine. but other than that there is no reason for me to hear about it. if people would just quit dividing themselves into stupid little groups we wouldnt have the need for sepperate groups to be recognized.

 

your not saying hey, were just like you, we should have the same rights. your screaming about your differences. thats stupid.

[Dak]

if you want gays to be thought of as equal' date=' and have all the same rights, what needs to happen is i need to never hear about it. why should i? why do you need to be visible as a homosexual? why cant you just be visible as another us citizen? if im at a party and you say "and this is my partner, john" fine. but other than that there is no reason for me to hear about it. if people would just quit dividing themselves into stupid little groups we wouldnt have the need for sepperate groups to be recognized.

 

 

your not saying hey, were just like you, we should have the same rights. your screaming about your differences. thats stupid.[/quote']

 

I savvy what your saying. people who go "o hi, im john, im gay by the way, thats inportant get used to it" annoy the hell out of me, but i think the point about the parade is just for them to be able to say 'we dont have to hide', which alot of them have been having to do in one way or another (from parents etc).

 

It also is important because it challenges the inbuilt social assumptions that everyone should be considered straight unless proven otherwise and that the only people for whom that doesn't apply are interior decorators, male hairdressers, etc.

 

as assumptions go thats not a bad one, ie it will be proven correct in the majority of cases.

[Thomas Kirby]

I get the feeling sometimes that if straights knew how to be proud of themselves, as human beings even if they are straight or whatever, we wouldn't be having the problems with them that we do. By "we" I mean every class that is discriminated with, whether we are gay, handicapped, geeks, or whatever.

 

As for straigh-pride parades' date=' they'd be useless, since straights are not (as a class) opressed or discriminated against, are considered the default and thus don't need to shout in order to be visible, and are highly numerous. If you wanted to, fine, everyone should be proud of their sexuality, but it'd basically be a pointless waste of time.

 

Mokele, who's marched in gay pride parades before.[/quote']

[In My Memory]

Callipygous,

 

which is more of the stupid, backwards thinking people always use in regard to minority rights. if you want gays to be thought of as equal, and have all the same rights, what needs to happen is i need to never hear about it. why should i? why do you need to be visible as a homosexual? why cant you just be visible as another us citizen? if im at a party and you say "and this is my partner, john" fine. but other than that there is no reason for me to hear about it. if people would just quit dividing themselves into stupid little groups we wouldnt have the need for sepperate groups to be recognized.

The absolutely best way for any minority group to never rise out of second-class citizenship is to never say a word.

[Pangloss]

" ."

[Callipygous]

Callipygous' date='

 

 

The absolutely best way for any minority group to never rise out of second-class citizenship is to never say a word.[/quote']

 

 

and what im saying, is the only reason "homosexuals" is a minority with second class citizen status is BECAUSE THEY BRING IT UP.

 

dont ask for rights as a homosexual, thats stupid. ask for rights as a person. homosexuals dont deserve rights, PEOPLE deserve rights.

 

its not that you should never say a word. if theres a problem, by all means say so. they want to ban gay marriage? go protest! great! dont do a damn parade through the middle of the street celebrating your sexual orientation. speak up about problems, not "hey, im gay, accept me."

[Mokele]

the stuff most people associate the gay pride parade with is not going to help people think of them as just normal folks you live next door to.

 

Have you ever seen a gay pride parade? Like in person, not a doctored and heavily edited newsclip designed to specifically show the weirdest people?

 

As I said, I've marched in one (unfortunately I had to miss the last two due to work). There were only 6 drag queens, and nobody else dressed unusually. 6 queens in over 1500 people, the rest of whom looked like anyone you would pass on the street. I wore the outrageously provocative outfit of jeans and a t-shirt (which, like most of my shirts, depicted reptiles).

 

which is more of the stupid, backwards thinking people always use in regard to minority rights. if you want gays to be thought of as equal, and have all the same rights, what needs to happen is i need to never hear about it. why should i? why do you need to be visible as a homosexual? why cant you just be visible as another us citizen? if im at a party and you say "and this is my partner, john" fine. but other than that there is no reason for me to hear about it. if people would just quit dividing themselves into stupid little groups we wouldnt have the need for sepperate groups to be recognized.

 

your not saying hey, were just like you, we should have the same rights. your screaming about your differences. thats stupid.

 

As IMM correctly pointed out, that's a one-way ticket to becoming an underclass.

 

Most gay people do *not* wander around proclaiming it for all to hear. Most only *do* bring it up when it comes up in conversation, which is very infrequently. If you were to go by that basis, you'd think, erroneously, that gays are tiny, tiny portion of the population, smaller than usual, because you don't *have* conversations like that with all the people you see every day. If there was never any pride parades, you'd think gays would be less than 0.001% of the population, because you'd unconsciously assume everyone you pass on the street is straight.

 

That's why pride parades exist, to show that there's more than you suspect, and to show that they're people you'd never expect.

 

as assumptions go thats not a bad one, ie it will be proven correct in the majority of cases.

 

The problem is twofold, though. First, it's only about 90% accurate. But secondly, the existence of that assumption is a huge problem for the gay rights movement because we have no external distinguishing features that allow people to realize they're discriminating against people they see every day. As I mentioned before, you're statistically less likely to hold homophobic views if you know a gay person, even as an aquaintance, so visibility is essential. The assumption directly counteracts that visibility.

 

and what im saying, is the only reason "homosexuals" is a minority with second class citizen status is BECAUSE THEY BRING IT UP.

 

Thus spake someone who clearly has not studied the situation.

 

Do you realize that until *last year* it was illegal for two consenting adult males to engage in anal sex in the privacy of their own home in the state of Texas? And that similar laws exist all over the country? How is that "our fault"?

 

If a guy gets beaten to death just because he held hands in public with his boyfriend, did he bring that on himself, by not hiding who he is and avoiding a simple, harmless gesture that you see thousands or millions of straight couples doing every day?

 

And how, exactly, does not being given the right to marry come from being visible?

 

How dare we actually try to live our lives as we see fit!

 

How dare we actually try to have a bit of the freedom this country is supposedly based on!

 

I guess we'd all better return to hiding in case someone actually finds out that we're somehow 'different' and kills us for it.

 

dont ask for rights as a homosexual, thats stupid. ask for rights as a person. homosexuals dont deserve rights, PEOPLE deserve rights.

 

In case you haven't noticed, homosexuals *are* people.

 

its not that you should never say a word. if theres a problem, by all means say so. they want to ban gay marriage? go protest! great! dont do a damn parade through the middle of the street celebrating your sexual orientation. speak up about problems, not "hey, im gay, accept me."

 

In short, you want us to remain invisible until you give us permission to speak up? You want us to willingly be complicit in the very invisibility that will see us lose our rights and basic freedoms at the hands of homophobes.

 

---------------

 

Give me one good reason why I *shouldn't* parade down the street? One good reason. Does it offend you? Make you uncomfortable? Bring up some deeply supressed feelings you've been hiding?

 

Give me one reason why I shouldn't enjoy the same basic freedom to be open about myself as anyone else?

 

Do you also think that women should not advertise the fact that they are women until something bad is happening (like it always is)? The burka works very well for that purpose, and look how much it's done for women's rights.

 

Mokele

[In My Memory]

Callipygous,

 

and what im saying, is the only reason "homosexuals" is a minority with second class citizen status is BECAUSE THEY BRING IT UP.

Are you being serious? Until now, I have never come across who believes minorities bring their second-class citizenship upon themselves by the virtue of demanding not to be second-class citizens. "Blowing all manner of sociological trends across history and culture out the window, we suddenly realize that it isnt the small-minded bigots who make minorities into second-class citizens, but the minorities who bring it upon themselves."

 

If you seriously believe this idea, please never publish it, otherwise you'll embarrass yourself terribly.

 

dont ask for rights as a homosexual, thats stupid. ask for rights as a person. homosexuals dont deserve rights, PEOPLE deserve rights.

It isnt so cut-and-dry in the real world. People really do emphasize heavily on labels like nationality and sexuality, and a minority group of people who challenge the status-quo really are less deserving of rights in the eyes of the bigoted majority. Thats just the real world, and an idealistic mantra like "ask for rights as a person" means next to nothing in the real world.

[Dak]

Do you realize that until *last year* it was illegal for two consenting adult males to engage in anal sex in the privacy of their own home in the state of Texas? And that similar laws exist all over the country? How is that "our fault"?

 

Was it also illegal for a man and a woman to have anal sex?

 

callipygous: even if you dont see the point, is there any specific reason why gays shouldnt march?

[Mokele]

Was it also illegal for a man and a woman to have anal sex?

 

Under that specific statute, no, however, other laws in Texas and other states had that effect. IIRC, the inequality (forbidding it only for homosexuals) was an issue (though not the main one) in the law being overturned.

 

Mokele

[Ophiolite]

We are all minorities of one.