Omg!
This was on Deviantart; put it here coz I knew no one would bother going there for it and it's beautiful and SAD! :'-(
The artist ('Yellowworm') said as follows:
"brief: 2 teenage lovers in Iran get hung for their sexual preference.
one is charged with capital death. the other, au lieu to living, chooses
to die by his lovers side. both are reaching for eachother even as they're put to death."
long story (copyright ALTAR Magazine/Cassandra Harlan)
--------------------------------------------
Noose Nation
By Cassandra Harlan
From the day they were born, Eli and Omar were criminals. Eli came from a wealthy family of Iranian aristocrats and Omar was the oldest of two born to a mother who had recently become a widow. They fell in love and secretly began seeing each other. Since the 1979 Revolution, their love was forbidden in Iran, and on July 19, 2005, in the city of Mashad, they met their fate.
Condemned to Die
Eli was charged with raping Omar. Upon hearing this, Omar started to cry openly in the courtroom, staining the torn linens that were assigned to him by the Iranian police. A soldier to his right quickly poked the young prisoner in the ribs and demanded that he shut the hell up. Eli stood silent next to his lover and co-defendant, listening to the trumped up indictments against them: Rape, entrapment, and criminal seduction. The judge, who was also the prosecutor and jury, read the charges with ease. Judge Barin half-listened as the defense attorney for the boys argued that they didn’t know that their youthful experimentation would lead to such serious consequences. The judge yawned as the attorney pleaded with him to spare his clients the maximum sentence of death. They were minors, he explained, and a death sentence would violate the treaties Iran signed with the international community. Watching Omar and Eli during the sentencing, Judge Barin was disgusted by their public display of emotion. One was crying hysterically while the other caressed his shoulders, consoling him. He snarled when he asked them to choose how the state should terminate their existence: death by hanging, being thrown from the highest perch, cut in half with a sword or stoned to death. Eli looked the judge straight in the eye and chose to be hung along side his lover in the public square.
Carrying The Cross
The mood outside of Sacramento’s City Clerk’s office was tense. News vans were lined up outside, each reporter looking for a story to kick off the five o’clock news program. “Jesus Hates Faggots,” read a sign outside of city hall held up by a woman in her mid-50s. Her group, Americans Marching against Enjustice Now, or AMEN, stood across the street at city hall as hundreds of same sex couples lined up to get married in California. Butches, pitchers, bike dykes, queens, post-ops, catchers, femmes, pre-ops waited anxiously for the chance to stand before the judge.
Falling the First Time
Psst… did you hear? Renee Zellweger and Kenny Chesney, newlyweds for only four months, are moving to have their union annulled! They stood before God, their family and friends to declare their eternal love for one another until death do they part. In just a few short months, they go on with their lives as if the marriage never even happened.
Mother
Misha gazed up at her son, watching as the noose tightened, causing his body to twitch and convulse. She watched with relief as her only son died next to his filthy lover, Eli. Around her, people rejoiced. Many brought apples and oranges with them to throw at the pair. Others threw rocks, trash, and anything else they could get their hands on. They sung out in praise, elated because they had defeated the evil that lived amongst them. Allah was victorious! Misha was grateful to President Ahmadinejad and the police for restoring her family’s honor. Upon entering the arena, she went right up to her son’s executioners and shook their hands vigorously. The crowd cheered while Omar wept. Misha looked at her son’s tears, and her heart became concrete. Even in the time of death, she thought, Omar did not know the meaning of courage, but Misha knew. It took courage for her to throw her only son out on the street. When she found them in the bedroom that day, hungrily kissing one another on Omar’s bed, she fainted. When she came to, she promptly slapped Omar across the face. A proud woman, Misha was newly widowed and would not allow a kawanii to be the head of her household.
Help
My partner Greg and I have been together for five years. Right now he’s in the hospital trying to stay alive. He’s been battling lung cancer for the past year and a half and was hospitalized recently because he had difficulty breathing. When he heard about California giving gays the right to marry, he was thrilled. The news motivated Greg to get better and he promised me he would fight this disease and marry me. We were both excited and began planning our wedding. Greg was getting a lot better, but then his parents arrived at the hospital a couple of months later. They took one look at me and knew that I was more than just Greg’s roommate. Our secret was out. His alcoholic mother and his closeted, self-loathing father have barred me from the hospital. While I’m at home worrying about Greg, his father is telling him and anyone who will listen that he’s lucky it’s just cancer and not that fairy disease.
More Help
Omar’s sister went to the prison alone. The guards at the Intelligence Ministry headquarters were appalled by her mannish behavior. “What a family full of freaks,” the clerk thought as Alicia told him who she came to see. Her mother had forbidden her to go because it was unnatural for a woman to travel by herself, and ever since Misha caught Omar with his lover, he was disowned. She urged Alicia to turn her back on Omar because he chose his own fate. “When he decided to lay down with that man, like a dog, he brought whatever pain Allah decided to inflict upon him,” Misha explained. As Alicia walked down the poorly lit hallway, inhaling the desperation and fear, the cries of the tortured rang in her ears. She hung her head and quickly made her way to her brother’s cell. They embraced and she politely ignored his swollen lip and bruised eye. He smiled gently when she revealed what she had snuck in past the guards. Hidden carefully underneath her hijab were peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies, his favorite.
Falling the Second Time
Omar was beaten when he was brought in for interrogation. The beefy guards leered at his slight frame and timid nature. “So, how long have you been a cocksucker,” one of them asked politely, sitting across from Omar, peeling a green apple. The sharp shiny blade frightened Omar. He had heard of the guards slicing off the fingers of their captors and mailing their digits to family members in an effort to get the prisoner to talk. The guard to his right took his slight hesitation as a refusal to speak and began to throw punches at his head and torso, violently attacking Omar until he slumped down to the floor. The guard sitting across from him remained at the table, calmly peeling his green apple.
Woman
“Listen, let me tell you something, Sydney. Having sex with another woman is just wrong,” Timothy explained to his sister.
Sydney was fuming when she called her brother to share her outrage at California’s decision to overturn its ruling that had allowed gay people the right to get married. Her brother Timothy agreed with the reversal and didn’t see why Sydney was so worked up.
“But it also says in the Bible to love your neighbor as yourself. Why don’t you try doing that instead of judging me?” Sydney retorted.
“I do love you; I just can’t support what you’re doing. I don’t make the rules, God does. And God says that it’s wrong, and that you’re going to hell. Period.”
“You know what? It’s also in the Bible that fornication is a sin. Last time I checked, you and Michele weren’t married. Hell, you barely even like her.” Sydney shot back.
“That’s different,” said Timothy, “I’m a man.”
Falling the Third Time
At age ten, Eli announced to his conservative, Muslim family that he was gay. His father took him out back, stripped him and beat him viciously for hours. Upon the advice of a colleague, Eli’s father flew him to the United States to seek medical attention from a black market psychiatrist who secretly used everything from hypnotizing Eli into liking women to electroshock treatments that would keep the young boy from desiring men. Eli’s father was desperate to reverse this abomination that his son so fabulously flaunted. Years later, his outgoing personality got him and Omar arrested. He was caught kissing Omar on the cheek in the bathroom of their local mosque, but Eli wasn’t concerned. They can’t build a case against you, unless you give them some evidence. His gay friends had tried to warn him. Many of them had been picked up by the Iranian police in the past. But Eli’s stay in prison was different. He endured beatings, starvation and had the fingernails on his right hand pulled out one by one. No matter what they did, he kept his mouth shut. His nerves of steel finally melted when they pulled out the hot seat. He watched as they lit a match under the rusty grey metal chair. Its color quickly changed from gray to red hot and Eli was commanded to sit down and have a seat. Sickened by the idea of what his burning flesh would smell like, he quickly began to ramble. He broke down and described to the guards his passionate love for Omar. He silently prayed for their mercy.
Stripped
When my boyfriend came out to me and told me he was bisexual, I was devastated and disgusted. We had spent the last six months making love, holding hands, he even met my parents. I dumped his ass on our seventh month anniversary when I found out he had cheated on me with a waitress at his job. But on his birthday, three months later, I gave him a call. What a sentimental fool. I fell for his charms again and we were right back in bed. That is until I found his collection of gay porn hidden underneath his bed. He came out to me nonchalantly, telling me that he had been with four guys. But he wasn’t gay, he insisted; just straight with a twist!
Nailed
Lot said to his people, “How could you commit such an abomination, publicly, while you see? You practice sex with the men, lustfully, instead of the women. Indeed, you are ignorant people.” The only response from his people was their saying, “Banish Lot's family from your town; they are people who wish to be pure” (Quran 27:54-56).
You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination. (Leviticus 18:22)
Dead
Eli chose the public hanging because he knew it would get on the news. Local, national and international outlets would pick up the story and condemn Iran for its barbaric behavior. Filled with this as his final hope, Eli reached out for his lovers twitching hand and exhaled for the final time, knowing that they would live together again in Paradise.
Taken Down from the Cross
Outraged at their defiance, the crowd threw food at the hanging corpses. How dare they flaunt their perverseness! The cameras captured all of this; the anger of the crowd, the defiance of the two boys, the horrendous act condoned by the Iranian government. Their pictures, headlines, articles and commentaries were spread throughout the world. In China a man spit his double espresso on the subway platform when he saw the picture, a young woman in Buenos Aires cried when she read the headline and a gay man in France wrote a furious letter to the editor of his local newspaper, who argued that the boys had brought this on themselves. But Time declined the photos, Newsweek was already well past its deadline and The Washington Post had a better story to put in the paper: “Gays Marry in California.”
Laid in the Tomb
In the summer of 2005, international outcry reached a fever pitch. Gay and lesbian groups from around the world spoke out against the government ordered killing of two young boys for “homosexual acts.” The United States spoke the loudest. It remained silent.
Well I'm all emo now ;'-(
The artist ('Yellowworm') said as follows:
"brief: 2 teenage lovers in Iran get hung for their sexual preference.
one is charged with capital death. the other, au lieu to living, chooses
to die by his lovers side. both are reaching for eachother even as they're put to death."
long story (copyright ALTAR Magazine/Cassandra Harlan)
--------------------------------------------
Noose Nation
By Cassandra Harlan
From the day they were born, Eli and Omar were criminals. Eli came from a wealthy family of Iranian aristocrats and Omar was the oldest of two born to a mother who had recently become a widow. They fell in love and secretly began seeing each other. Since the 1979 Revolution, their love was forbidden in Iran, and on July 19, 2005, in the city of Mashad, they met their fate.
Condemned to Die
Eli was charged with raping Omar. Upon hearing this, Omar started to cry openly in the courtroom, staining the torn linens that were assigned to him by the Iranian police. A soldier to his right quickly poked the young prisoner in the ribs and demanded that he shut the hell up. Eli stood silent next to his lover and co-defendant, listening to the trumped up indictments against them: Rape, entrapment, and criminal seduction. The judge, who was also the prosecutor and jury, read the charges with ease. Judge Barin half-listened as the defense attorney for the boys argued that they didn’t know that their youthful experimentation would lead to such serious consequences. The judge yawned as the attorney pleaded with him to spare his clients the maximum sentence of death. They were minors, he explained, and a death sentence would violate the treaties Iran signed with the international community. Watching Omar and Eli during the sentencing, Judge Barin was disgusted by their public display of emotion. One was crying hysterically while the other caressed his shoulders, consoling him. He snarled when he asked them to choose how the state should terminate their existence: death by hanging, being thrown from the highest perch, cut in half with a sword or stoned to death. Eli looked the judge straight in the eye and chose to be hung along side his lover in the public square.
Carrying The Cross
The mood outside of Sacramento’s City Clerk’s office was tense. News vans were lined up outside, each reporter looking for a story to kick off the five o’clock news program. “Jesus Hates Faggots,” read a sign outside of city hall held up by a woman in her mid-50s. Her group, Americans Marching against Enjustice Now, or AMEN, stood across the street at city hall as hundreds of same sex couples lined up to get married in California. Butches, pitchers, bike dykes, queens, post-ops, catchers, femmes, pre-ops waited anxiously for the chance to stand before the judge.
Falling the First Time
Psst… did you hear? Renee Zellweger and Kenny Chesney, newlyweds for only four months, are moving to have their union annulled! They stood before God, their family and friends to declare their eternal love for one another until death do they part. In just a few short months, they go on with their lives as if the marriage never even happened.
Mother
Misha gazed up at her son, watching as the noose tightened, causing his body to twitch and convulse. She watched with relief as her only son died next to his filthy lover, Eli. Around her, people rejoiced. Many brought apples and oranges with them to throw at the pair. Others threw rocks, trash, and anything else they could get their hands on. They sung out in praise, elated because they had defeated the evil that lived amongst them. Allah was victorious! Misha was grateful to President Ahmadinejad and the police for restoring her family’s honor. Upon entering the arena, she went right up to her son’s executioners and shook their hands vigorously. The crowd cheered while Omar wept. Misha looked at her son’s tears, and her heart became concrete. Even in the time of death, she thought, Omar did not know the meaning of courage, but Misha knew. It took courage for her to throw her only son out on the street. When she found them in the bedroom that day, hungrily kissing one another on Omar’s bed, she fainted. When she came to, she promptly slapped Omar across the face. A proud woman, Misha was newly widowed and would not allow a kawanii to be the head of her household.
Help
My partner Greg and I have been together for five years. Right now he’s in the hospital trying to stay alive. He’s been battling lung cancer for the past year and a half and was hospitalized recently because he had difficulty breathing. When he heard about California giving gays the right to marry, he was thrilled. The news motivated Greg to get better and he promised me he would fight this disease and marry me. We were both excited and began planning our wedding. Greg was getting a lot better, but then his parents arrived at the hospital a couple of months later. They took one look at me and knew that I was more than just Greg’s roommate. Our secret was out. His alcoholic mother and his closeted, self-loathing father have barred me from the hospital. While I’m at home worrying about Greg, his father is telling him and anyone who will listen that he’s lucky it’s just cancer and not that fairy disease.
More Help
Omar’s sister went to the prison alone. The guards at the Intelligence Ministry headquarters were appalled by her mannish behavior. “What a family full of freaks,” the clerk thought as Alicia told him who she came to see. Her mother had forbidden her to go because it was unnatural for a woman to travel by herself, and ever since Misha caught Omar with his lover, he was disowned. She urged Alicia to turn her back on Omar because he chose his own fate. “When he decided to lay down with that man, like a dog, he brought whatever pain Allah decided to inflict upon him,” Misha explained. As Alicia walked down the poorly lit hallway, inhaling the desperation and fear, the cries of the tortured rang in her ears. She hung her head and quickly made her way to her brother’s cell. They embraced and she politely ignored his swollen lip and bruised eye. He smiled gently when she revealed what she had snuck in past the guards. Hidden carefully underneath her hijab were peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies, his favorite.
Falling the Second Time
Omar was beaten when he was brought in for interrogation. The beefy guards leered at his slight frame and timid nature. “So, how long have you been a cocksucker,” one of them asked politely, sitting across from Omar, peeling a green apple. The sharp shiny blade frightened Omar. He had heard of the guards slicing off the fingers of their captors and mailing their digits to family members in an effort to get the prisoner to talk. The guard to his right took his slight hesitation as a refusal to speak and began to throw punches at his head and torso, violently attacking Omar until he slumped down to the floor. The guard sitting across from him remained at the table, calmly peeling his green apple.
Woman
“Listen, let me tell you something, Sydney. Having sex with another woman is just wrong,” Timothy explained to his sister.
Sydney was fuming when she called her brother to share her outrage at California’s decision to overturn its ruling that had allowed gay people the right to get married. Her brother Timothy agreed with the reversal and didn’t see why Sydney was so worked up.
“But it also says in the Bible to love your neighbor as yourself. Why don’t you try doing that instead of judging me?” Sydney retorted.
“I do love you; I just can’t support what you’re doing. I don’t make the rules, God does. And God says that it’s wrong, and that you’re going to hell. Period.”
“You know what? It’s also in the Bible that fornication is a sin. Last time I checked, you and Michele weren’t married. Hell, you barely even like her.” Sydney shot back.
“That’s different,” said Timothy, “I’m a man.”
Falling the Third Time
At age ten, Eli announced to his conservative, Muslim family that he was gay. His father took him out back, stripped him and beat him viciously for hours. Upon the advice of a colleague, Eli’s father flew him to the United States to seek medical attention from a black market psychiatrist who secretly used everything from hypnotizing Eli into liking women to electroshock treatments that would keep the young boy from desiring men. Eli’s father was desperate to reverse this abomination that his son so fabulously flaunted. Years later, his outgoing personality got him and Omar arrested. He was caught kissing Omar on the cheek in the bathroom of their local mosque, but Eli wasn’t concerned. They can’t build a case against you, unless you give them some evidence. His gay friends had tried to warn him. Many of them had been picked up by the Iranian police in the past. But Eli’s stay in prison was different. He endured beatings, starvation and had the fingernails on his right hand pulled out one by one. No matter what they did, he kept his mouth shut. His nerves of steel finally melted when they pulled out the hot seat. He watched as they lit a match under the rusty grey metal chair. Its color quickly changed from gray to red hot and Eli was commanded to sit down and have a seat. Sickened by the idea of what his burning flesh would smell like, he quickly began to ramble. He broke down and described to the guards his passionate love for Omar. He silently prayed for their mercy.
Stripped
When my boyfriend came out to me and told me he was bisexual, I was devastated and disgusted. We had spent the last six months making love, holding hands, he even met my parents. I dumped his ass on our seventh month anniversary when I found out he had cheated on me with a waitress at his job. But on his birthday, three months later, I gave him a call. What a sentimental fool. I fell for his charms again and we were right back in bed. That is until I found his collection of gay porn hidden underneath his bed. He came out to me nonchalantly, telling me that he had been with four guys. But he wasn’t gay, he insisted; just straight with a twist!
Nailed
Lot said to his people, “How could you commit such an abomination, publicly, while you see? You practice sex with the men, lustfully, instead of the women. Indeed, you are ignorant people.” The only response from his people was their saying, “Banish Lot's family from your town; they are people who wish to be pure” (Quran 27:54-56).
You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination. (Leviticus 18:22)
Dead
Eli chose the public hanging because he knew it would get on the news. Local, national and international outlets would pick up the story and condemn Iran for its barbaric behavior. Filled with this as his final hope, Eli reached out for his lovers twitching hand and exhaled for the final time, knowing that they would live together again in Paradise.
Taken Down from the Cross
Outraged at their defiance, the crowd threw food at the hanging corpses. How dare they flaunt their perverseness! The cameras captured all of this; the anger of the crowd, the defiance of the two boys, the horrendous act condoned by the Iranian government. Their pictures, headlines, articles and commentaries were spread throughout the world. In China a man spit his double espresso on the subway platform when he saw the picture, a young woman in Buenos Aires cried when she read the headline and a gay man in France wrote a furious letter to the editor of his local newspaper, who argued that the boys had brought this on themselves. But Time declined the photos, Newsweek was already well past its deadline and The Washington Post had a better story to put in the paper: “Gays Marry in California.”
Laid in the Tomb
In the summer of 2005, international outcry reached a fever pitch. Gay and lesbian groups from around the world spoke out against the government ordered killing of two young boys for “homosexual acts.” The United States spoke the loudest. It remained silent.
Well I'm all emo now ;'-(