"Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall"

Sep 20, 2010 06:38

I come out of the woodwork. I'm now back in Finland. There's been a lot on, and I always feel like trying to come up with something that sums up what I've been up to is as daunting a task as building Rome.

So, for now, something completely different.

Whilst doing my usual rounds of googling, I stumbled onto something most people probably heard about back in 2005 when it happened. And who knows, maybe I did too. Iran executed two teenage boys for the crime of homosexuality. Learn more through this link. Shocking, appalling and wrong, I'm sure, but instead of the morality of condemning children to death, I found myself questioning something else entirely. Namely, that they were referred to as "gay". I don't think the words "homosexual" and "gay" are interchangeable. I also don't think on can righfully call two Iranian boys of such a young age homosexual. They engaged in homosexual acts by their own admission, but being a homosexual is not just engaging in homosexual acts, and engaging in homosexual acts does not define a homosexual. Seriously, if that makes one a fag, there're a whole lot of frat boys who'll suddenly feel a need to question their heterosexuality. I honestly doubt that Iranian teens have a grasp on the concept of gay lifestyle. In the linked article Doug Ireland calls for protest against "the barbaric hanging of these two lads to whom nature gave same-sex hearts". I agree. Hanging boys for being sexual is barbaric and cruel, but does painting these boys as gay martyrs really serve any purpose? Especially when we might just as well simply agree that hanging children for any reason is barbaric. Since I'm pretty sure no one would argue against that.

If you ask me, something like this is a human rights issue, not a gay rights issue. But I'm still tagging this with the gay tag...

links, gay, google

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