This video shows the hanging in Iran of two young boys, Ayaz Marhon and Mahmoud Asgari. Their only "crime" was being gay.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gARvwzFWSr4
Pride Month is coming to an end, and those of us gay people who are fortunate enough to not live in a savage theocracy have a lot to be proud of. But for gay Americans, that pride is mixed with anxiety. Many European countries made the lack of marriage equality in the United States the subject of their Pride festivities. Why should they be surprised? Look at our fearless leader.
That brutal double-murder of Ayaz and Mahmoud is a routine occurence in Iran, and yet Presidnet Obama did not once pressure Iran (or any other Islamic country for that matter) to end its oppression of gays in his massive "apology" on behalf of the United States to "the Muslim world." Under the law of the Islamic Republic, the penalty for lesbian sex is one hundred lashes, with the death penalty enforced after the fourth offense. The death penalty is due on the first offense for male-on-male sex.
A young gay Iranian seeking refuge in Britain tells The New Internationalists,"It’s because of the Islamic revolution that people like me are here [in the U.K.]. . . The revolution is a really bad memory for gay and lesbian people. Before, they were free but now they can’t live in Iran and have to escape (Webster, Anna. "An Auspicious Anniversary.")
http://www.newint.org/features/special/2009/03/30/an-inauspicious-anniversary/
In the disastrous aftermath of the recent Iranian elections, in which scores of Iranians protested the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Obama decided not to put any U.S. pressure on the ayatollahs to listen to the will of the people.
Obama even remained silent (until it was much too little, far too late) as the brutal regime killed innocent protesters. This would have been the perfect time to speak out for not just gay Iranians, but all Iranians. Oddly, Obama has spent the first one hundred days of his presidency paying more respect to the religion of Islam than to human beings.
After more than one hundred days in office, Obama's record on gay rights is dismal, despite his campaign promises and his effort to energize the gay community into voting for him. He invited anti-gay Rick Warren to his inauguration. He has effectively pushed both marriage equality and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" into whenever "the sun sets on his administration." And that's if he gets re-elected. If the next president is a Republican, gay people might as well leave for Europe.
But the most shocking aspect of Obama's first hundred days is the blatant, vitriolic bigotry. Most of us have become used to Democrats paying lip service to gay rights but offering a winking, "Sorry, guys, I have to do this" approach to marriage equality. Not so with Obama. His Justice Department's defense of DOMA (which is anti-equality) is a sickening read: it equates gay sex with incest and same-sex couples with inbreeding rapists.
Joe Solomonese of the Human Rights Campaign says in a predictably tepid open letter to Obama, "As an American, a civil rights activist, and a human being, I hold this administration to a higher standard than this brief. . . I realize that although I and other LGBT rights leaders have introduced ourselves to you, clearly we have not been heard, and seen, as what we also are: human beings whose lives, loves, and families are equal to yours."
Insultingly, Obama responded to criticism that he has done little for gay rights by declaring June Pride Month, something he was expected to do anyway as a Democrat. Not to mention the fact that Bill Clinton had first done this in 1996; how depressing that Obama's one substantive stand on gay rights takes us no further than the 90's. Other than that, Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post points out that Obama's federal extension of gay rights benefits--part of his supposed turnaround on gay rights--is only partial; plus, it's a memorandum instead of an executive order. ("HRC's Joe Solomonese Tells Olbermann Obama Went 'Way Over the Line.' ")
Is there any reason to believe the author of The Audacity of Hope will improve? Will he change his priorities and start showing more concern for gay people than for Iranian ayatollahs? It's hard to say. Obama invited gay rights activists to the White House for a gala celeberating "LGBT pride" and commemorating Stonewall. Sadly, the White House barely advertised it until the media called out his administration on its hypocrisy.
And even if Obama's little gay party had been out and proud, how does that help the female couple who wants their union recognized as something more than shacking-up-with-medical benefits? How does it help gay kids like Ayaz and Mahmoud, who live under the brutal rule of a theocracy that's protected at all costs by political correctness?
For gay people in 2009, hope really is audacious.
CapeCodKwassa, Copyright 2009
4 comments:
Hey dude!! ;) My sister rachel goes to columbia and when they invited that gay/jewish hating scumbag Mahmoud Ahnahdijad to speak she was there. She was one of the people booing when he said there aren't gay people in Iran, it was funny how many people he pissed off.
Obama is lame. I wasn't old enough to vote in this election so you can't blame me. ;)
The vicious hangings of the two young gays in Iran cannot but conjure up in one’s memory the public lynching of blacks in America and helps to illustrate beyond any reasonable doubt just how horrific and tyrannical theocracy and homophobia really is.
Those whose dictates lead to such gruesome deaths of innocent human beings should themselves be hanged.
Obama has no intention of carrying through with any of his promises to the “special interests” – read, labor, women, gays, minorities, the general population, that’s what the mainstream media means by their euphemism “special interests,” as Noam Chomsky observes – and has even backtracked on repealing the harmful “don’t ask don’t tell” policy that would be the most minor and easy first step in defending gay rights, as you point out, that he campaigned upon: meaning that he is not only now stalling on the most minimal of gay rights, but he is now an actual objective liar (just as he is backtracking and stalling with regards to EFCA and all other “special interests” that the corporate business world claim he has no responsibility towards, never mind that these “special interests,” the general public, are responsible for his electoral victory.
What needs to happen is serious, sustained organization and activism. There needs to be created community cooperatives, centers and activist groups, there should be an attempt to create a viable labor party that actually represents working class and regular people – rather than two slightly different factions of the single business party – and the centrist Democrats and the Republicans need to be swept from any position of power and authority at all, period.
"The Audacity of Hope," some audacity indeed.
Lindsey:
Haha, well, in fairness to those of us who DID vote for him (myself included) I think we were duped by an adroit, Clintonian politician.
And Ahmahdinejad is beyond scummy. He is evil. I think in a weird sort of way, everything that just happened will actually stop the saber-rattling against Iran. We can all clearly see that neither this tyrant nor the ayatollahs who protect him represent the real people living in Iran. We should be helping these poor people--not bombing them.
JDHURF:
Very well stated. I agree the people who dictated those murders should be hanged.
Actually, I agree with everything you stated. Your ideas about getting rid of our psuedo-2 party system and creating lasting change through activism of regular people are substantive and well-reasoned.
Lindsey:
In defense of those who, like both Eli and myself, voted for Obama, the only three real options were Obama, McCain and nonparticipation. Within this dismal context everyone who voted for Obama were right to have done so; whether with illusions or without. A striking example of why this is the case is made manifest through the military coup in Honduras. Obama, though at first hesitant, has with principle correctly referred to the events as a coup d'etat and condemned it whereas there’s little doubt McCain would’ve done much the opposite, to great ill effect.
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