Queers for Tyranny

Why do so many gay people insist on supporting a regime that wants them dead?

Let’s try a homophobic thought experiment. What might be the worst imaginable society for gay people to inhabit? It would probably be presided over by a Supreme Leader who describes homosexuality as a ‘moral deprivation’ that is ‘too shameful to even talk about’. It would have officials and parliamentarians who would condemn gay people as ‘diseased’, ‘lower than animals’ and claim that it is a ‘great honour’ to violate their rights. It would back up its rhetoric with action, criminalising same-sex relations, and murdering gay people in the thousands.

Of course we don’t have to imagine any of this. The dystopia is already a reality. It is estimated that since the Islamic revolution of 1979, the Iranian regime has executed between 4,000 and 6,000 gay men and lesbians. There are no legal protections for gay people in Iran and the state has been known to monitor dating apps, social media and even the possession of gay-themed books for signs of ‘moral corruption’. Put bluntly, for homosexuals, Iran is a kind of hell on earth.

This hasn’t stopped a gay rights group called LGBTI Rights Australia from posting support for the regime on Facebook with the statement: ‘Iran has a right to defend itself’. In another post, it lamented that ‘in this twisted world, imperialism means only white countries get to have nukes’. This will come as a surprise to the racially-diverse state of Israel which has, as yet, not been subjected to pressure by the evil colonial West to surrender its arms. Perhaps the problem is not so much ethnicity, but the prospect of genocidal theocrats whose stated aim is to obliterate a neighbouring country and is developing weapons precisely for that purpose?

And last Saturday’s march through London was perhaps even more egregious. Along with the usual Palestinian flags and keffiyeh headscarves – surely a blind spot for those who have been bleating endlessly about the evils of ‘cultural appropriation’ – there were open endorsements of the authoritarian theocracy of Iran. One banner featured an image of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei along with the slogan ‘Choose the right side of history’.

One would be forgiven for assuming that the protest had been infiltrated by a satirist. Iran has one of the highest global execution rates in the world. The Ayatollah has sanctioned the slaughter of dissidents without due process, has outlawed freedom of speech, and has a paramilitary ‘morality police’ who routinely attack women for ‘immodesty’. After 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was murdered by police for revealing some of her hair, the subsequent protests were violently suppressed by the regime and over 500 people were killed. If this is the ‘right side of history’, the future looks pretty bleak.

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