Gay -- or Left?

In: Commentary, Band 135, Heft 3

Abstract

On Jul 19, 2005, authorities in the Iranian city of Mashhad publicly lynched two teenagers, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, for the alleged crime of raping a 13-year-old boy. The story of Asgari and Marhoni soon became a signifier for the plight of homosexuals in Iran. Popular accounts cast the boys as a gay Islamic version of Romeo and Juliet, their love doomed from the outset. Among the more prominent gay activists to draw attention to the case was Peter Tatchell. For more than four decades, Tatchell has been one of the most outspoken and controversial figures in British public life. Tatchell, citing an underground Iranian opposition group, issued a press release entitled "Iran executes gay teenagers." Like others, Tatchell was quick to label the sexual orientation of the murdered boys, but he was working under the known fact that they had been victims of a regime with murderously homophobic laws on its books and a capricious judicial system in which to mete them out. Adapted from the source document.