>On Tue, 2007-09-25 at 14:34 +0100, James Heartfield wrote:
>
>> But Ahmadinejad's government seems sufficiently aware of the existence of
>> Iranian homosexuals to pass stringent laws against them.
>>
>I am no expert on the Islamic Republic's penal code, but it would be
>surprising if the laws in questions weren't laws against acts rather
>than people...
Laws against acts not directly harmful to others are, and can be, nothing but laws against the people who *prefer* those acts. The Volstead Law was not a law against teetotalers, it was a law against drinkers. Forget quibbles about the academic shibboleth "sexual orientation." Everyone has preferences among various sexual partners and acts. A "homosexual," at a given moment, is simply someone who at that moment prefers a partner of the same sex--and, over time, is simply someone who usually prefers partners of the same sex during that period of time. Ahmed-i-nejad's stupid rhetorical ineptitude is amazing and, in the context of hysterical Zionist warmongering, very dangerous.
Shane Mage
"Mortals immortals, immortals mortals,
living their deaths, dying their lives"
Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 62