Laurence Thomas : "Gays, Islam, and Liberals"

"Well, there are infidels and there are infidels. Two gay teenagers in Iran— Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni—count as infidels of the other kind. Now, when I did a search in the archives of the New York Times, I easily found a 2300-word story about Zach, the gay teen who was sent to a religious-based camp in order to be morally rehabilitated. But undoubtedly it is a sign of my incompetence that I could not find in the New York Times anything about the hanging of the two gay teenagers in Iran.

Surely, the New York Times did not miss the story, which caught the attention of folks throughout the world. So what happened? My answer is very cynical. The killing of those two teenagers in the name of Islam is an indication of just how horrendous the belief system is of some of those who invoke the name of Islam. Two teenagers? Could there be a clearer sign that these adherents of Islam simply do not respect life? I am afraid not. And this is an enormous embarrassment for liberals, for whom the New York Times is surely their most visible voice. To have run a story about the hanging of these two teenagers would have, in effect, been an admission that George Bush has more of a point than has been allowed.

... hanging two teenagers for committing acts of homosexuality when they were around the age of 16 or 17 constitutes a flagrant and inexcusable act of barbarism committed against two Muslim Arabs. This makes it manifestly clear that talking about doing horrific things in the name of Islam is more than just rhetoric against those infidels in the West, the United States in particular."