No Homosexuals in Iran!

As I warmed up at the gym, I watched the news on TV as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran proclaimed, over a podium at Columbia University, the following:

"In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country. We don't have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it."


I didn't know whether to laugh at the absurdity or vomit at the wretchedness of the statement. Of course there are Iranians attracted to members of their same gender. Cultural circumstance and environment might, in theory, not foster certain developmental "causes" of homosexuality as our culture does, so assuming environmental factors have some bearing, I could accept the possibility that there may be fewer there... But certainly risk of exile or death would have something to do with the scarcity of openly homosexual individuals.

If there are none, who are these people?

Maybe my culture and society aren't so bad, relatively. Not perfect, but not so bad.