I'm not sure that Mike Huckabee deserve the time and effort needed to publish an entry here at Party for the Rights, but I got trapped in some sensationalist headline at Gay News Watch, saying that Huckabee Warns Gay Marriage Threatens Civilization. Immediately I thought about Mike depicting hordes of Gay Terrorists 
Or maybe now that Ahmadinejad isn't an atomic foe, they can dine together after executing some more homosexuals.
Just days after asserting that there are no homosexuals in Iran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today invited United Nations inspectors into his country to search for homosexuals. "We have nothing to hide," Mr. Ahmadinejad said in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly. "You can search the entire country – even the airport bathrooms." While some senior U.S. diplomats expressed skepticism about the Iranian president's offer to allow U.N. inspectors to search his country for homosexuals, Mr. Ahmadinejad attempted to silence the skeptics by permitting the use of "advanced gaydar technology" as part of the proposed inspections. "In Iran we have the most advanced gaydar in the world and we are prepared to share it with you," he said.
In the immediate aftermath of Mr. Ahmadinejad's speech, it was unclear as to who would lead the U.N.'s inspection efforts, but most diplomats assumed that the task would fall to Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). At a press conference at the United Nations, Mr. ElBaradei acknowledged that he had no previous experience searching for homosexuals, but said that if chosen to lead the inspection effort he would make sure that the inspections were "rigorous and thorough." "The possibility that Iran may possess homosexuals is a serious matter to the world community," Mr. ElBaradei said. "There has been evidence for some time that Iran may be attempting to build a Broadway musical."
Elsewhere, President Bush made his first official comment on the situation in Myanmar, telling reporters, "I will support whichever side is easier to pronounce."
[Note: The above text's been taken from a message in Yahoo! Groups]
Juan Cole took the issue in a much more scholar way than I took it yesterday. And I forgot to point you to a former entry in this blog about gay secret life in Iran. Writes Juan Cole:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's bigotted statement that there are no homosexuals in Iran derived from his rightwing religious commitments. What he said is very serious. He erased gays right out of existence. The ultimate in denying people their rights is to deny they even exist (the nonexistent obviously have no rights.) There could be a debate over whether the gay lifestyle exists in Muslim countries, as a matter of identity politics, of course, but Ahmadinejad is not that sophisticated. He was saying that all Iranians are straight. Of course, gays are punished very severely in Iran, in reality.
It would be nice for the US Right to have us forget that they pull the Ahmadinejad act with regard to gays every day. Denying gays the right to marry is a way of erasing them from civil society. It is a way of denying that they really love one another, as straights do. It is a way of asserting that they do not exist.
The "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the US military (so unlike the one followed by many NATO allies) is also a way of erasing gays. They don't exist unless they themselves press the case that they exist. In order to remain in their jobs, they are forced to erase themselves by their silence. The 'don't ask, don't tell' policy is a way of pretending that there are no gays in the US military. For if it could be proven that anyone is gay, he is immediately expelled. It is just as silly as what Ahmadinejad said, and just as pernicious. That policy is supported by the entire American Right, which is no better than Ahmadinejad in this regard.
Here are a couple of Christian statements resembling the vile ones spewed by Ahmadinejad, just for comparison.
Catholic Ahmadinejads from Hannity and Colmes:
' COLMES: group that is where I am. Let me just show you another quote, and you'll be surprised at who's saying this.
"Based on the facts that are known to us, we continue to find it difficult to justify the resort to war against Iraq, lacking clear and adequate evidence of an imminent attack of a grave nature."
The Conference of Catholic Bishops saying that, Congressman, Dornan.
DORNAN: Did you watch the -- did you watch the debate? I watched six hours of debate, and I had a face-to-face fight with Cardinal McCarrick, who told me to my face there are no homosexuals in our seminaries. This is a discredited bunch of once holy men.
----FOX: HANNITY & COLMES, November 15, 2002 '
[Conservative] 'commentators have not mentioned the blatant homophobia in both Africa and Southeast Asia. Christian leaders in Africa still maintain that there are no homosexuals in their countries, or if homosexuality is admitted, that it was "caught" from white Europeans. Christians throughout the Third World still assert that homosexuals are either evil people who can be changed if they are converted, or that they are mentally sick people who can be healed if properly treated. Such theories are dismissed as nonsense in Western medical circles today. Homosexual people in Africa have told me that they risk murder if they come out of their closets. They believe that if they were killed, the act would be endorsed by many Christian leaders of that continent, who quote scripture to justify it.'
Oh, yes! It's been some hours and I bet the whole TLGBlogosphere is already spreading the video like fire. Well, here it is:
Of course, they can't have such a thing. As it's well pointed on Towleroad, they get rid of them. I was chatting with a good friend from the Gulf and he was like ROTFL when I told him about the above statements.
But then that feeling doesn't seem to be an exclusive of Mr. Ahmadinejad. Over the weekend you have all read about the Anglican meeting in the USA where even the Archbishop of Canterbury is seen as taking more tolerant (I hate this word, it should read "respectful") positions towards the inclusion of homosexuals within the Anglican ranks. And then we have our old friend (I'll leave Phelps to you, Lex, I have enough with this) Akinola, touring the USA in order to reap discontent fundamentalist Episcopalian bishops for his homophobic cause. I don't have a single doubt that Akinola and Ahmadinejad could find a final solution for "the homosexual problem". Nor you would read any statement from the Primate of Nigeria in support for the young guys threatened with death penalty in the sharia-applying states of the North.
Akinola, however, is not alone in his crusade for morality. Pentecostal churches (which belong to the same type of belief that Evangelical and in general, newborn Christians are) all along Africa are getting more and more base, as well as in Latin America and Europe. And what solutions do they propose for a problem which is not a problem? Conversion, no less. As I wrote in former posts, newborn Christians claim that it's possible to shift sexual orientation, as if it was a driving wheel, finding Jesus and repenting from abomination. They have scientific proof, grounds of which may be questioned by serious scientists, but whatever, isn't Final Proof of Creation (and not Evolution) to be found in a jar of peanut butter?
Still, what would newborn Christians do with those among homosexuals who don't want to be converted, or fail the conversion "therapy"? Would they handle us to Fred Phelps or to Ahmadinejad?
