Petrelis Files

New Republic: The Quiet Americans (Iran's Killing of Gay Teens)

Kudos to Rob Anderson and the New Republic for noticing and writing about the terrible silence and inaction of America's mainstream gay organizations over Iran's barbaric execution of two gay teenagers in July and its abysmal human rights record for gay and non-gay Iranians.

As someone who organized the only demonstration in the U.S. about the abuses, and who also persuaded San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsom and worked with our Board of Supervisors, especially Supes Bevan Dufty and Ross Mirkarimi, I didn't have a litmus test they had to meet before I would work with them.

Yet, the head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Matt Foreman, tell the New Republic that it would be hypocritical for Americans to protest Iran's anti-gay abuses if we haven't also condemned America's prison system.

"To Foreman, it would be hypocritical for U.S. gays and lesbians to criticize Iran if they haven't been criticizing America's own prison system all along," reports the New Republic.

Hey Matt! Do you think gay and human rights activists in Iran care if the San Francisco citizens and politicians who took the streets and issued official proclamations condemning Iran's death penalty and prison practices have spent time and energy deploring our prison system? Do you think we'd meet their standards for righteousness before publicly denouncing Iran's human rights abuses?

The deadly silence and politically correct mental masturbation about Iranian gays and that country's leaders from Foreman at NGLTF, Paula Ettelbrick at IGLHRC and Joe Solmonese at HRC is reckless and shameful.

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October 6, 2005

The New Republic Online

By Rob Anderson

In late July, news surfaced that Iran had executed two gay teenagers--ostensibly for sexual assault, but most likely for the crime of being gay. As pictures of their executions spread around the Internet, American gay and lesbian activists responded swiftly: The president of the Human Rights Campaign, the country's largest gay and lesbian political organization, sent a letter to Condoleezza Rice urging her to take action; the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and the gay and lesbian division of Human Rights Watch both issued statements on their websites; news outlets like The Washington Blade and Gay City News uncharacteristically led their coverage with an international story; and gay journalists like Doug Ireland and TNR senior editor Andrew Sullivan--who sit on opposite ends of the political spectrum--publicized the news on their blogs.

For the most part, however, interest was short lived. Last month, when Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to New York to visit the United Nations, he was greeted by thousands of Iranian protesters from the United States and overseas. America's gay and lesbian activists did not join in. Ireland, who has tirelessly reported abuses against gays and lesbians in Iran, was livid; he wrote that the failure of gay activists to protest Ahmadinejad represented the "the death of gay activism."

But Ireland was only half right. When it comes to the oppression of gays and lesbians in Muslim countries, gay activism hasn't died; it never really existed. Gay activists have used two types of excuses to justify their failure to aggressively mobilize for the rights of gay Muslims--moral and strategic. The moral argument is that Americans are in no position to criticize Iranians on human rights--that it would be wrong to campaign too loudly against Iranian abuses when the United States has so many problems of its own. Then, there are two strategic rationales: that it is better to work behind the scenes to bring about change in Iran; and that gay rights groups should conserve their resources for domestic battles.

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