HOMOFREI IRAN?

In 1969 I still thought I was straight... although I was starting to get the... idea that I might not be. I went to Europe for the summer with my girlfriend and when she went back to the U.S. in September to finish her senior year, I headed out in my VW van for India and parts unknown. In Tehran I had met an Iranian guy and had my first sexual encounter with a stranger. I have no idea how he's been since the Revolution-- we never developed any kind of a bond beyond that 20-30 minute encounter in downtown Tehran (in my van)-- but I think he'd be shocked to have heard what Iran's crazy president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said at Columbia today about how there are no homosexuals in Iran.

I always found Muslim countries very friendly places for gay people, at least under the psycho-religionist surface. And speaking of psycho-religionists, the far right has been ginning up the hatred towards Ahmadinejad (and Iran and Columbia University) to better prepare Americans for whatever next move Bush, Cheney, Lieberman and the rest of the American fascists want to make against Iran. What a tragedy for that country that they have a clown for a president (like we do)!

This morning DWT's sometime Art Director, Adam, a Fox fanatic and crazed Zionist, was screaming about the evils of Ahmadinejad so loudly that I figured he fell asleep with a hate Talk radio station on. I keep telling him that rapid right wing kooks get themselves-- and their weak-minded listeners-- all worked up into a lather and bent out of shape making a simple fool like Ahmadinejad more important than he really is and elevating him to some kind of prominence. In Iran he's not that big a deal and has very little actual power. Progressives-- like Columbia University-- invite him to speak, let him expose himself as a jackass, call him out on his abuses and laugh at his primitive, religionist ignorance. Even analysts in Iran can't understand why we waste so much time here talking about him. Next thing you know, they'll be calling on David Vitter and his pals to speak!

Lucas over at The Battle School tells a cautionary tale today about a Neocon loon, "John," he met while he was volunteering at a hospital in the Dominican Republican last year.

While spending a weekend on the beach John noticed that I was reading America at the Crossroads by Francis Fukuyama, and he asked me what it was about. I told him it was about Neo-Conservatism, and proceeded to tell him why it's so loathsome, and why it's killing America.

John disagreed with me.

John said that what is killing America wasn't the infringement of civil rights, the corrupt officials, the never-ending wars, the over-spending on said wars, the poor foreign policy, or the light-speed progress towards a dictatorship. None of that.

John said that what is killing America was homosexuals.

I hope John watches this videoclip of Ahmadinejad at Columbia today and decides that that is the perfect place for him to live. Perhaps he can take some of his friends as well.