Another Victory for the God Squad

Gays and lesbians are being forced back into the closet where they belong, or else:

Samir Shaba sits in a restaurant, nervously describing gay life in Iraq. He speaks in a low voice, occasionally glancing over his shoulder.

The heavyset, clean-shaven Christian says that before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, he frequented the city's gay blogs, online chat rooms and dance clubs, where he wore flashy tight clothes, his hair long and loose to his shoulders.

After the invasion, he and other gays and lesbians were driven underground by sectarian violence and religious extremists. Shaba, 25, packed his flashy clothes away, started wearing baseball caps and baggy T-shirts and stopped visiting clubs and chat rooms. But he couldn't bear to cut his hair.

[. . .]

In October 2005, Iraq's leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, on his website forbidding homosexuality and declaring that gays and lesbians should be "punished, in fact, killed."

"The people involved should be killed in the worst, most severe way," the decree said.

Giuliani is right: Thank God George Bush is our president. Our righteous leader and his glorious war have set the world on fire with religious fervor—OT-style!

Tags: religion, iraq, human rights