Another Place I Won't Be Pegging On My Travel Map

As I continue to spend every free moment (is there such a thing?) organizing the event that I am involved with next week, I stumbled upon another disturbing issue that I don’t think a lot of us know about. With so much hardship going on in the Middle-East already, how would you also like having to hide (even from your own family) the fact that you are gay for fear that you will be executed? Today is July 19th, the International Day of Action Against Homophobic Persecution in Iran. There will be vigils worldwide. I don’t know why West Hollywood is not a part of this or why I had to stumble upon it to find out. A year ago today in two gay teenagers were publicly hanged after being reported by a family member. A family member! WTF! To add insult to injury, the Iranian Government twisted the story to peg them as Serial Child Killers, which was their ‘official’ reported reason for the hanging. Apparently this is not something new. Public executions of gays in Iran have gotten rarer in recent years. Why? Well you see Iran evidently does not want to draw attention to its failure to eradicate same-sex behavior in their 'Islamic paradise'. So instead they make the official report say something like they were executed for charges of kidnap or rape because these two crimes appear to attract little sympathy from anyone in Iran or throughout the world. In reality, lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders are all continuing to be executed.

Look how tough these assholes are that they can't even show their faces as they put the ropes around these two boys!

Today there will be demonstrations all over the world recognizing this issue and remembering Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni; two teenagers who were by all reports a loving couple living in a really fucked up land. If you’d like to read more about this: http://www.homanla.org/New/Vigils.htm direland.typepad.com/direland/2006/06/global_protests.html http://www.homanla.org/New/executions.htm From time to time here in LA friends make comments about how much has changed in recent years that we can openly, for the most part, live as a gay person. Each time I hear this, I have to stop myself from cringing. I really think that we take a lot for granted living here. It’s because of this that we need to keep ourselves informed of what’s going on all over the world with people just like us who only want to live a happy, true life. We have come very far but have so much farther to go.