Gay Star News: Freedom Defined

That's freedom is it, standing round in your pants?

The West is the best!

Christ, Gay Star News is shit.

Peter Tatchell: Useful Idiot

Western Left used to fight fascism. Now it ignores the crimes of neo-fascist Assad, Putin, Iran & Hezbollah in Syria pic.twitter.com/fSGfeGW2Sb

— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) August 19, 2016

And to think some people believe Peter Tatchell is a CIA stooge...

Saint Peter - fearless defender of American imperialism!

Iran: Not For Being Gay

Nope. Your report makes it quite clear the crime - again - was the rape of a boy.

Just like Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni.

Hanging is wrong.

Child rape is wrong.

Odd how some people stick up for these.

I think if Iran executed men 'for being gay', they'd have got a bit further than three.

End.

Orlando: Islam

'The instant exploitation of this attack is part of a more general trend of exploiting liberal social issues to glorify agendas of militarism, tribal conflicts, and aggressive foreign policies. Decorate the GCHQ headquarters or the Tel Aviv city hall with the LGBT’s rainbow flag colors and suddenly mass surveillance and decades-long military occupation seems pretty and liberal. Choose militaristic U.S. Presidents who represent social milestones of race and gender and suddenly their militarism seems to liberals to be more tolerable and even inspiring. Pretend that the war on Afghanistan is about feminism, and aggression toward Iran is about protecting LGBTs, and watch liberals melt with appreciation. Disguise anti-Muslim animus as pro-LGBT activism and one can quickly expand support for a neocon mentality and agenda into large sectors of western liberalism.

'Depicting anti-LGBT hatred as the exclusive (or even predominant) province of Islam is not only defamatory toward Muslims but does a massive disservice to the millions of LGBTs who have been — and continue to be — seriously oppressed, targeted, and attacked by people have nothing to do with Islam. The struggle of LGBTs around the world is difficult enough without having them cynically used as some sort of prop to bash a group that itself is already being bashed from multiple directions.'

Stop Exploiting LGBT Issues to Demonize Islam and Justify Anti-Muslim Policies, Glenn Greenwald.

Hope Peter Tatchell reads this - then maybe he'll see why so many gay men on the left think he's a right wing imperialist stooge.

Here he is being not racist or Islamophobic earlier.

Iran: More Lies, Please

The great thing about writing about Iran is you can write any old bollocks and no-one will pick you up on it.

Propaganda: The Danger Of Demonisation

Does any intelligent person look at a New York Times article about Russia or Vladimir Putin these days and expect to read an objective, balanced account? Or will it be laced with a predictable blend of contempt and ridicule? And is it any different at The Washington Post, NPR, MSNBC, CNN or almost any mainstream U.S. news outlet?

And it’s not just Russia. The same trend holds true for Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Nicaragua and other countries and movements that have fallen onto the U.S. government’s “enemies list.” We saw the same pattern with Saddam Hussein and Iraq before the 2003 U.S. invasion; with Muammar Gaddafi and Libya before the U.S.-orchestrated bombing campaign in 2011; and with President Viktor Yanukovych and Ukraine before the U.S.-backed coup in 2014.

That is not to say that these countries and leaders don’t deserve criticism; they do. But the proper role of the press corps – at least as I was taught during my early years at The Associated Press – was to treat all evidence objectively and all sides fairly. Just because you might not like someone doesn’t mean your feelings should show through or the facts should be forced through a prism of bias.

In those “old days,” that sort of behavior was deemed unprofessional and you would expect a senior editor to come down hard on you. Now, however, it seems that you’d only get punished if you quoted some dissident or allowed such a person onto an op-ed page or a talk show, someone who didn’t share Official Washington’s “group think” about the “enemy.” Deviation from “group think” has become the real disqualifier.

Yet, this conformity should be shocking and unacceptable in a country that prides itself on freedom of thought and speech. Indeed, much of the criticism of “enemy” states is that they supposedly practice various forms of censorship and permit only regime-friendly propaganda to reach the public.

But when was the last time you heard anyone in the U.S. mainstream say anything positive or even nuanced about Russian President Putin. He can only be portrayed as some shirtless buffoon or the devil incarnate. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got widespread praise in 2014 when she likened him to Hitler...

Robert Parry, consortiumnews.com

Thankfully the gay media doesn't do this sort of thing.

If you just go 'LIKE HITLER!', you've already lost the debate.

Syria: Sodomy In Action

The Advocate.

As with Iran a decade ago, and Russia a year ago, you can now tell when the right is getting ready for war, as they suddenly highlight homophobia in a designated country.

Altogether now; 'They throw gay men off buildings!' 

Update: David Cameron's call to arms in the Commons on Thursday...

“In the Middle East, they are seeking to establish their vision of a caliphate across Iraq and Syria, forcing people in those areas to yield to their rule or face torture or death. They have beheaded aid workers, organised systematic rape, enslaved Yazidi women and thrown gay people off buildings. All these atrocities belong to the dark ages.”

Andrew Percy, Conservative MP for Brigg & Goole writing in the Telegraph.

Google 'Syria gay/s buildings' for endless examples of this 'Bombing for gay rights' mantra.

Gay Star News: Pornography As Propaganda?
Only carpet bombing can stop this!

Noam Chomsky: On Power And Ideology

Even Chomsky has bad hair days.

The role of concentrated power in shaping the ideological framework that dominates perception, interpretation, discussion, choice of action, all of that is too familiar to require much comment. Tonight I’d like to discuss a critically important example, but first a couple of words on one of the most perceptive analysts of this process, George Orwell. 

Orwell is famous for his searching and sardonic critique of the way thought is controlled by force under totalitarian dystopia. But much less known is his discussion of how similar outcomes are achieved in free societies. He’s speaking, of course, of England. And he wrote that although the country is quite free, nevertheless unpopular ideas can be suppressed without the use of force. Gave a couple of examples, provided a few words of explanation, which were to the point. 

One particularly pertinent comment was his observation on a quality education in the best schools, where it is instilled into you that there are certain things that it simply wouldn’t do to say - or, we may add, even to think...

Lecture given to the New School, New York, Saturday. Via Democracy Now!

And here's a Jacobin interview on Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders, Syriza and the prospects for radical change.

PS Now seems a good time to revisit Fagburn and Uncle Noam on US/Cuba.

Peter Tatchell Watch: The T-Count

Another press release released to the press by Peter Tatchell of the Peter Tatchell Foundation and reprinted in Pink News.

I'm pretty sure Saint Peter just acts like an MI6 stooge for free.

A PN reader, Just Passing By, comments...

"Peter Tatchell, director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation"

And that, ladies and gentlemen, pretty much sums up Peter Tatchell.

In the olden days of the internet, in the newsgroup uk.gay-lesbian-bi, there used to be a running joke called the "T-count" - that was the number of times Peter Tatchell referred to himself in the third person, in press releases written by himself, and put out by the "organisations" of which he was supposedly the leader (which in practice meant: Peter Tatchell, and the most recent handful of people he'd met and hadn't yet fallen out with, and who were willing to do Peter Tatchell's bidding unquestioningly - for a brief while, usually, until they found out what he's like). But at that time, he didn't name those organisations after himself, he just referred to himself as "Peter Tatchell" in the third person, rather than "I". He now seems to have switched tactics: he does now use "I" in press releases, but has started calling the latest incarnation of his "organisation" after himself instead.

(Just as an exercise for the reader, I leave it to them to count the number of times Tatchell uses the words "I'", "my", and "me" in the fairly brief quotes that are attributed to him here.)

When asked the inevitable; 'BUT WHAT HAVE YOU DONE???' he answers..

I'd say I have done exactly the same amount for the progess of human rights as Peter Tatchell has: absolutely nothing. Beyond, perhaps, voting for the right political parties. I don't consider "getting the name of Peter Tatchell mentioned in the media as often as possible" much of a human right that needs progressing.

But if you have evidence of some of these human rights achievements of his, I'd love to hear about it.And no, press releases from the Peter Tatchell Foundation, written by Peter Tatchell, and mentioning Peter Tatchell in the third person, don't count as evidence.

And oh yes, I've reread my post, and I fail to see any of those "slurs" you have detected. The closest I ever came to P.T. personally was exactly in that uk.gay-lesbian-bi newsgroup I mentioned. He steadfastly refused to participate in that, despite ranting about things being said there on his own mailing list (well, the mailing list for whatever "organisation" he was calling himself at the time). The reason was very simple: on that mailing list, he routinely kicked out anyone who dared to disagree with His Peterness the Tatchell in any way. Actual discussion in a (quite polite, well-mannered) forum where he didn't call the shots was beneath him.

Tweet Of the Day: Peter Tatchell

.@fagburn is entitled to criticise me but not to fabricate that I support rapists. After years of lies & smears he is blocked

— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) July 17, 2015

Saint Peter is currently organising a vigil for two child rapists - note even he has now stopped saying they were hanged 'just for being gay', a lie he started.

Join our remembrance of 2 teens hanged by Iran in 2005 after unfair trial. Sunday 2pm London http://t.co/mqyPtdjvcb pic.twitter.com/Nw8N176tWe

— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) July 17, 2015

Please let me know what lies I've told, happy to correct them. x

Update...

The rainbow fart machine Gay Star News.

UPDATE: For clarity, GSN has noted from the outset this report has not been independently verified. Taheri is yet to reply to our questions seeking to substantiate his claims. We urge caution but feel it is in the public interest to report the claims, given they are gaining traction on social media. GSN is in touch with other sources in Iran and is continuing to investigate.

So why the fuck are you running it then?

Big Gay Baby: Introducing Our New Star Columnist...

Proudly waving the rainbow flag for the infantilisation of gay journalism since July 2015!

Hey gays! 

Didya see the photos of Pluto, the small planet? Pluto, the gay planet, more like! Hahaha!!! 

* Also didya see Caitlyn Jenner's moving speech when she accepted some award the other day? That tranny trans lady is #sobrave - and an inspiration, esp. to all the other trans lady millionaire Republican TV reality show stars. You go, trans girl! 

* So according to some boffins, all homophobes are secretly gayers! Hahaha! Some may dismiss this as an even bigger pile of steaming crap than I currently have in my nappy, but Big Gay Baby prefers to believe in comfort blankets like this.

* Congrats to American singing sexpot Nick Jonas! If only more hot male pop stars would 'come out' and say they don't want to kill all the gays with an assault rifle or perhaps a machete. And if only Nick could crush homophobia with his gorge big bulging biceps!!! #SoBraveNick 

* There was something in the news about the Nazis this week - it was actually about some old guy's involvement in the extermination of a million Jews at Auschwitz, but let's not forget those Nazis were also pretty horrid to the Gays! :( 

* Talking of Nazis, didya see the video of those two brave Russian dudes walking round Moscow hand-in-hand? They got called some very nasty names! Will we never learn from history??? First they came for the... [Subs, pls fill in the rest of this hackneyed quote]. 

* Talking of countries that are just like Nazi Germany, didya see they've lifted international sanctions against Iran? Hrmph! Well, Mr Obama, some of us will never forget the 6 MILLION GAYS Iran has sent to the gas chambers! Big Gay Baby says keep the sanctions - until there is a lovely Rainbow Crossing in Tehran! 

* On a lighter note, just got an email from the guys at Grindr. Apparently, according to a scientific poll they've conducted, it's a great place to find love and to make new friends! Well done Grindr! Happy to put the record straight and give you a free ad. 

* Maybe all the sad and lonely gays I've been reading about who go to so-called 'chemicalsex parties' should try using Grindr to find love and make some new friends, eh? Just sayin'...

That's great, Big Gay Baby, but I think it's time for your nap now...

Burp!

The New US Gay Media Map Of The World: Bad Vs Good

Orange: Land of the free. Absolutely amazeballs!
Green: Totally evil! Worse than Hitler.

PS: Iran has now fallen off the media map cause America no longer wants to bomb them to buggery. Interesting news analysis of how the Western media suddenly thought Iran was homophobic when they wanted to invade FOR THE HOOMAN WRITES!

Cuba: La Revolucion Continua!

Cuban gay rights activists led by the daughter of President Raul Castro plan a mass symbolic wedding on Saturday to promote acceptance of gay and transgender Cubans in a country once notoriously hostile toward them.

The ceremony will be part of an annual gay pride parade and will be symbolic because same-sex marriage is illegal in Cuba, Mariela Castro told reporters. She said it would also be low key because Cuban society is still uneasy about full rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

"We can't do a wedding, but we wanted to have a very modest celebration of love with some religious leaders," said Castro, head of the National Sex Education Center and a member of Cuba's National Assembly. "In the future we'll see what more we can do." ...

Cuban gays have made great strides in recent years, largely because of Mariela Castro's political standing, but same-sex marriage and civil unions remain illegal.

Some public attitudes changed when retired leader Fidel Castro admitted in 2010 that he had been wrong to discriminate against gays, who were sent to labor camps in the early years after the 1959 revolution. [Mainly as an alternative to military conscription, they were hardly gulags. Gay men were still being imprisoned in the freedom-loving US and UK then, of course].

Cuba's National Assembly last year approved a labor law that banned discrimination based on sexual orientation. But Mariela Castro voted against the law in an extremely rare and possibly unprecedented dissenting vote because the law did not also ban discrimination based on gender identity.

Cuba's one-party political system traditionally operates on consensus, which Castro said was one reason lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Cubans still lack full legal rights.

"There is a fear that this will tear Cuban society apart," Castro said. But, she said she believed it would not create a rupture. "It will create cultural and ideological enrichment."

Reuters.

The situation of gay men in Cuba was mainly 'notorious' in the West because the US gay and straight media were obsessed with it in the 70s and 80s, when Cuba was Uncle Sam's Public Enemy Number One.

You be hard pressed to find a single one about gay life in the capitalist paradises next door, Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Just as a supine media were obsessed with the plight of Iranian gay men a decade ago, and with Russia's in recent years.

You may sense a pattern here... Pinkwashing in reverse.

From Indiana To Iran: Only Connect

CNN - links to video interview.

Tom Cotton: Opponents Of Anti-gay Law Need 'Perspective'

I’m starting to long for the good old days, just weeks ago, when nobody had to think about Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas.

Mr. Cotton, you will remember, was the primary author of the constitutionally outrageous and substantively mindless letter from Republican senators telling the leaders of Iran that they shouldn’t negotiate on nuclear weapons with President Obama. Now, he is adding his voice to those who are telling gay Americans that they shouldn’t get too pushy about their civil rights.

Mr. Cotton was asked by Wolf Blitzer on CNN yesterday about a law passed by legislators in his home state that is clearly intended to permit businesses and individuals to discriminate against people on the basis of their sexual orientation.

“In Arkansas,” he began, “we believe in religious freedom.” Mr. Blitzer, to his credit, pointed out that “everybody believes in religious freedom.”

Mr. Cotton countered with the irrelevant fact that President Clinton signed a federal law on which the current assault on gay rights is based. (The comically named Religious Freedom Restoration Act). That’s true. He also signed the Defense of Marriage Act, an outrageous infringement on the constitutional rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans. And he signed the bill that turned military policy against gays and lesbians serving openly in the armed forces into the moronic law known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

So Mr. Clinton was lousy on this civil rights issue. What’s Mr. Cotton’s point?

“It’s important that we have a sense of perspective about our priorities,” he said. “In Iran they hang you for the crime of being gay.”

So, let’s not worry about civil rights in this country, which Mr. Cotton and other lawmakers can actually protect, but rather in Iran. Why Iran?

I’m so glad you asked — because Mr. Cotton wanted to turn the conversation to his current propaganda campaign about Iran. “We should focus on the most important priorities facing our country, right now,” he said, adding that the prospect of a “nuclear-armed Iran” is one such priority.

So why is Mr. Cotton trying so hard to scuttle the talks in Switzerland that could actually lead to limits on Iran’s nuclear programs?

Andrew Rosenthal, New York Times.

But you don't get hanged in Iran 'just for being gay'.

Though this politically convenient fiction has been repeated so often it's become almost impossible to argue against.

But that's hegemony for you.

You might want to ponder why the US right - usually otherwise vehemently anti-gay - has kept pushing this myth.

And why a Neo-Con like Cotton is exhuming it now.

Gramsci would have wept.

PS And of course there was also the inevitable, Republican senator compares Iran deal to Nazi appeasement.

Venezuela: Take That!

The White House on Monday announced the imposition of new sanctions on various Venezuelan officials, pronouncing itself “deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government’s efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents”: deeply concerned. President Obama also, reportedly with a straight face, officially declared that Venezuela poses “an extraordinary threat to the national security” of the U.S. — a declaration necessary to legally justify the sanctions...

That nothing is more insincere than purported U.S. concerns over political repression is too self-evident to debate. Supporting the most repressive regimes on the planet in order to suppress and control their populations is and long has been a staple of U.S. (and British) foreign policy. “Human rights” is the weapon invoked by the U.S. Government and its loyal media to cynically demonize regimes that refuse to follow U.S. dictates, while far worse tyranny is steadfastly overlooked, or expressly cheered, when undertaken by compliant regimes, such as those in Riyadh and Cairo (seethis USA Today article, one of many, recently hailing the Saudis as one of the “moderate” countries in the region). 

This is exactly the tactic that leads neocons to feign concern for Afghan women or the plight of Iranian gays when doing so helps to gin up war-rage against those regimes, while they snuggle up to far worse but far more compliant regimes...

If Obama and supporters want the government of Venezuela to be punished and/or toppled because they refuse to comply with U.S. dictates, they should at least be honest about their beliefs so that their true character can be seen. Pretending that any of this has to do with the U.S. Government’s anger over suppression of political opponents — when their closest allies are the world champions at that — should be too insulting of everyone’s intelligence to even be an option.

Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept.

PS Foreign secretary Philip Hammond has warned that Russia "has the potential to pose the single greatest threat" to UK security. BBC News. Don't laugh.

Israel: Satire Dies Once More

Despite Iran spat, US support for Israeli occupation continues without pause - Noam Chomsky.

BBC News: Tell Me Lies About Iran

Oh, hang on, what's this you say halfway down?

It's not official government policy to force gay men or women to undergo gender reassignment...

BBC News.

Fagburn can't help noticing the absence in this article of any Iranian gay men, and the small number of sex reassignment surgeries carried out in Iran (370 in 2010), if gay people are being 'pushed' into them.

You'll be saying you get executed in Iran just for being gay, next.

Oh, hang on, you have.

LGBT people flee #Iran, fearing execution or pressure to change gender. Iran echoes Nazi bid to eradicate gays http://t.co/RW1DanxJmj @ICHRI
— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) November 7, 2014

This is quite stunning.

Gay men are not being eradicated in Iran - and there was no 'Nazi bid to eradicate gays'.

Gay men went to prison and labour camps, Jews were rounded up and shot or sent to death camps.

To pretend otherwise is disgusting and insulting,

Travel Tips: Morocco

The Guardian.

As ever, just because a country has laws against homosexuality, it doesn't mean they are routinely enforced. *

The shocking case of Ray Cole and Jamal Wald Nass was an exception, not the rule.

* This is a widespread canard in both the gay and straight media.

Both from just yesterday; The Spread Of Gay Rights, The Economist - which implies you get stoned to death for being gay in some countries cause they haven't embraced neo-liberal globalisation.

And When In Rome, Think Of Gay People In Iran, Libby Purves, The Times.

No serious observer believes men get arrested, never mind executed, in Iran, just for being gay.

If this were true they must have the most incompetent police force since the Keystone Cops.

Iran: 17%

An 82-page document recently issued by Iran’s parliamentary research department is stark in its findings. Not only are young adults sexually active, with 80% of unmarried females having boyfriends, but secondary-school pupils are, too. Illicit unions are not just between girls and boys; 17% of the 142,000 students who were surveyed said that they were homosexual...

The Economist.

If true - and it doesn't sound it (think they mean said 'I dig dudes sometimes', at least) - then ask yourself why people say you get executed in Iran 'just for being gay'. 

If so, shouldn't there be more than two men who were executed 'just for being gay'?

Out of a population of 77 million.

Unless those two men raped a kid.

Which they did.

And it suddenly became an issue when the US/UK wanted to invade Iran.

Odd that.

PS Amazing the gay balls you can write about Iran.

Iran: A Life Ruined By Well-Meaning Westerners

I'm sitting in the living room with Darius, and the house is empty. I'm kissing him, as I do whenever we have the luxury of being alone together. We are in love, and in these moments, I feel absolute bliss and comfort.

I am thinking about the flavor of his mouth, when the ringing of the telephone pulls me out of the moment.

I reluctantly break away and answer. I recognize my cousin's familiar voice, but I can tell immediately that something is very, very wrong.

"Farhad. I saw you on the TV," he declares. Coldly.

What? TV? My mind races, but I cannot imagine what he could be referring to. Before I can respond or even question him, he says, "I know what you are. I know what you are and I don't want to see you anymore."

The line clicks dead.

I'm frozen. I am unable to speak, and Darius grows worried as my face turns pale. I fumble for the remote control, and the TV comes to life. I flip through the channels until I find something unusual. They are showing a documentary about gay people in Iran and letting people around the world know how hard and dangerous it is for gays in this country. The film was made by a Canadian television channel, and it sure seems like they care a lot about the well-being of gays in Iran.

Darius and I are shocked that a documentary on such a subject is being aired. Now some people are talking about their problems in front of the camera, but their faces are blurred. It is interesting, I suppose, but what does it have to do with me? In less than a minute, I have my answer. I begin to feel dread when the camera pans across a restaurant I know well. It is the spot where gay people in Tehran gather every Tuesday. Where I go most Tuesdays. Now the camera is inside the restaurant, and they are showing us. They are showing our faces. They are showing my face. It is obviously shot with a concealed camera. A long lens, zoomed in—my face filling the screen for several seconds. Casually chatting, completely unaware. They are even sure to identify the restaurant by name. And we don't know we are being filmed. How nice of them: They want to let the world know how miserable gay people are in Iran and how the government kills them because of their orientation, and they come to our community and expose us to everyone? To the hateful government? To our neighbors, friends, and families?

Farhad, The Stranger.

Via Scott Long.

PS The video Inside Iran's Secret Gay World has been removed from YouTube for 'copyright infringement'.

Golf Alpha Yankee (Official Trailer) from Rick Flynn on Vimeo.

Update: Rick Flynn, who's directing Golf Alpha Yankee, a new documentary about Iranian gay refugees in Turkey got in touch.

GOLF ALPHA YANKEE provides an intensely intimate look into the lives many who have suffered human rights abuses as a consequence of being gay in Iran. To achieve this intimacy without endangering any of its subjects, the film never reveals faces or other identifiable features. This also allows for a unique visual and audio language, which becomes increasingly personal throughout the film.

By blending documentary footage with fictionalized scenes written by the subjects themselves, GOLF ALPHA YANKEE not only sheds light on their lives as gay refugees in Turkey, but also delves into their experiences as gay men in their native Iran.

Fagburn knows nothing more about Flynn or the film project apart from what's on the website, but hopes this one does justice to its subjects.