"We don't have gays...

Mtn Dew wrote:

Where did Falwell or Robertson condone executing homosexuals? How many homosexuals were executed by the state last year for homosexuality in the U.S.?

So as long as we're not killing them everything is peachy keen??

Anne Observer wrote:

So as long as we're not killing them everything is peachy keen??

I'd rather be a homosexual in the U.S. than in Iran and so would anyone else with half a brain. That doesn't mean everything is peachy keen, but in the U.S. the state won't sanction homosexual marriage which is more of an annoyance when compared to the state sanctioning execution for homosexual behavior.

You can't legitimately compare how homosexuals are treated here to what they do in Iran.

Mtn Dew wrote:

You can't legitimately compare how homosexuals are treated here to what they do in Iran.

Whatever makes you sleep better at night.

That Ahmedijad is a fool just like the Penatgon and the "don't ask don't tell" policy, and like the so-called Christian Right. They are trying to deny the rights of gays in this world. Screw them silly bastards.

death by hanging = inablity to serve in military - now I get it.

Mtn Dew wrote:

I'd rather be a homosexual in the U.S. than in Iran and so would anyone else with half a brain. That doesn't mean everything is peachy keen, but in the U.S. the state won't sanction homosexual marriage which is more of an annoyance when compared to the state sanctioning execution for homosexual behavior.

You can't legitimately compare how homosexuals are treated here to what they do in Iran.

You initially replied to me about this, and I never was comparing the two. But since you brought it up, I replied. What did you think of my reply ? Apparently you were outraged at the way the police were wasting their time waiting in bathrooms trying to entrap gays who simply rub their legs against another (in the Craig case), right? Taking your side on that issue, seems like we ARE targeting gays in this country, huh? And what about my reference to Texas up until 2003? One could be arrested for having CONSENSUAL, PRIVATE gay sex in their home! Again, not the death penalty, but pretty incredible, don't you think? (and Scalia, your libertarian hero was outraged that Texas had to overturn that law)

So saying we don't treat gays as badly as they do in Iran, is a bit of a cop-out point. It's like saying to a country that treats Jews very badly, "well, at least it isn't Nazi Germany," or saying that in early 1900's in the USA, when blacks were still treated incredibly poorly, "well, at least we are not keeping them as slaves anymore!" Those are all true points, but a bit silly to point out. Yeah, we don't treat gays as poorly as Iran, who we call the "Axis of EVIL", but we treat them pretty poorly/unequally in many areas, and in some states recently had laws banning them from participating in private consensual sex. So what does that make the US part of ? An "Axis of the kinda-bad & prejudiced" ?

The Texas case was ridiculous. The state has no business getting involved in that at all.

Scalia isn't my hero and he isn't a libertarian. Anyone that claims he is doesn't know what a libertarian is.

We don't treat most Americans very well with a lot of the things we do, gays just get treated a bit worse. Every single country on Earth does something I'd say was bad, some just do worse things and do them more often. The U.S. is a great country despite its flaws. We're nowhere near the category of Iran. In some countries they want to outlaw badmouthing homosexuality which is a restriction of freedom so that makes them bad in a way. Every country screws up somehow. The thread was originally about Iran's president and nobody with a sound mind should have brought up how the U.S. treats homosexuals because it's not even in the same league which DOESN'T mean the U.S. can't improve how it treats its homosexual citizens.

We treat Moslems in this country like shit. Locking them up without due process just like the Japanese. Moslems are not free to express their outrage at the genocide, rape, torture, sodomy, etc. by U.S. and Israeli troops, for fear of being arrested and jailed without due process.

Ironic that the in WWII, the Japanese culture demanded military service, they into the U.S. Armies, and not one of the 30,000 Japanese soldiers ever went AWOL or deserted from battle in Europe, a record unheard of for any other front-line unit, and these soldiers families were in U.S. military jails back in California at the time.

Well put.

I am sick of the sentiment that some people hold that since things are not perfect here that we are equally as bad as other nations.

Because of the preposterous nature of some of his claims, from Holocaust denial to claiming there are no homosexuals in Iran, some argue that it is unlikely that anyone would take him seriously.

While no rational person here will take Ahmadinejad seriously, back in Iran, because the full tape does not have to be played, they will see him at a major American university castigating the U.S. and receiving applause, which many who attended were polite (or delustional) enough to give him at various points of his address.

The 1st Amendment prohibits the government from prohibiting speech. It does not require that private institutions give some reprehensible person a platform to broadcast odious views.

I love how conservatives like Mtn Dew won't acknowledge that the reason why things are better for gays here than in Iran is because the intellectual forebears of his viewpoint were bested by the intellectual forebears of my viewpoint. Once the zeitgest turns thoroughly against things they held as absolute truths they try to pretend they agreed with the new consensus all along. Of course it is way better to be gay here than in Iran and we have secular liberalism, not conservative religiousity, to thank for it.

Who is remotely trying to compare the US and Iran? At least my point is that if liberal anti-clericalism is good in Iran, it should also be good here as well.

I'm not a conservative. The rest of your rant isn't worth rebutting because you can't get the first part of it right.

I can believe how many half wits don't get it. True, Ahmadinejad is a stupid jerk and an asshole, but he's no W. Bush. Ahmadinejad presents the argument 'the Holocaust didn't happen' as a metaphor for Zionist's denial of 10,000 year history of the Semitic tribes in the Middle East and in Palestine in particular. Ahmadinejad using the two as as example of what narrowminded idiocy exists in the world.

Yeah. Right. It's just a metaphor. Exactly

Please, tell us: What is, "We will wipe israel off the map" a metaphor for?

You're f***ing hilarious. There has never been such a country as Palestine. The Jews are the only reason anyone gives a damn about that strip of desert -- because they raised it up from being a desert. And your precious Arab nations (which treat Arabs worse than Israel does -- never mind what they do to Jews or even Christians!!) are still piss-poor except for the connected few, despite their billions of barrels of oil. Israel crushed them several times with all the odds against them, and will do so again if it has to.

5.4.3.2.1

It is only a matter of time before someone starts spouting stuff how Israel wasn't really the underdog in their fight for independence or in 1967 or that Israel caused that war or some other nonsense. Or Dier Yassin, the US Liberty, or the King David Hotel was bombed and then equaiting Israel to present day terrorists.

Don't argue with me about it. I'm just a student. You should argue with the Persians and the Arabs, that's their point of view, like it or not. Of course there isn't much arguing going on, just shooting.

Don't ask me about it. I took a classe in world history last semester because I had to for GE and that's what the prof said the Arabs and Persians are fighting for, like it or not. You can join the Army, there's no diplomacy the way it reads now, just everyone fighting in many places. The driving issue is the liberation of Palestine / the defense of Israel. We can agree on that I'm sure.