Given the numerous and often conflicting angles that have been worked on that whole gay Iranian rape teen thing, I was thrilled when Tyler bounced me a link to this article in The Nation, which offers a thoughtful, reasoned overview of the less-than-thoughtful, sometimes irrational reportage surrounding the story. No, it doesn’t get to the heart of the matter–what really happened in Iran?–concluding instead, like that guy in the Tootsie Pop commercial or so many grad school papers in the morally relative, Foucault-loving 1990s, that the world may never know. Still, it’s a good play-by-play as far as following the press releases goes.
The one thing that the author misses, though–or at least fails to point out–is the wacko language that some folks are/were using in reponding to the story. The most egregious examples come from–quel surprise— Andrew Sullivan and the Log Cabin Republicans, both of whom cite the hangings in Iran as further justification for the War on Terror.
Huh?
I mean, no, it’s not terribly shocking that Republicans–gay or not–would follow in the former footsteps of our Vacationer-in-Chief by conflating terrorism, the Iraq war, and the struggle to quell Islamic fundamentalism, but that doesn’t make the conflation any more valid. Seriously, how does the War on Terror (begun in the wake of September 11, 2001 to rout out terrorists) have anything to do with Iraq (invaded on phony claims of WMDs and later recast as a war of “liberation”) or with the hangings of two kids (who may or may not have been gay and/or rapists)? Hell, even G.W. learned his lesson on that one, having launched his own failed attempt at consolidating and rebranding.
Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m no apologist for terrorism, extremism, or intolerance. Having grown up in Mississippi, I’m particularly familiar with the last two, and I’m well aware that all three are related. That relationship, though, is a complex one that needs to be countered in a thoughtful, intelligent, nuanced way. That doesn’t preclude using military metaphors–or military action for that matter–but there ain’t much nuance in a bullet.
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