Iranian Parliament Discovers Lots and Lots of Gays in Iran

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Well it took a while.

“In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at Columbia University last night in response to a question about the recent execution of two gay men there.

“In Iran we do not have this phenomenon,” he continued. “I do not know who has told you we have it.”

Fareed Zakaria claimed that Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari was sentenced to prison in part for posting this photo on his Facebook page.

And now they’ve been discovered in Iran. (via Religion of Peace)

An 82-page document recently issued by Iran’s parliamentary research department is stark in its findings. Not only are young adults sexually active, with 80% of unmarried females having boyfriends, but secondary-school pupils are, too. Illicit unions are not just between girls and boys; 17% of the 142,000 students who were surveyed said that they were homosexual.

At 17% Iran would be far gayer than America. Or most places.

While the Middle East does have a higher prevalence of homosexual behavior (which is really not the same as our construct of gay as a permanent genetic identity, itself an unscientific notion) it’s doubtful that these numbers are accurate.

In a country where homosexual behavior is illegal, it’s doubtful that students who really thought they were gay would admit it to any kind of research study. However Iran’s government is looking for excuses to crack down further and numbers like these give them ammunition.

The 17 percent figure suggests that the numbers were made up. But then again even in the West distorted figures like these happen because the students are messing around. It’s one reason we have wildly inflated numbers of the gay population.

Preliminary results from the landmark study — known as “Add Health” — stunned researchers, parents and educators alike, recalls Cornell’s Ritch C. Savin-Williams, professor of human development, licensed clinical psychologist, author and director of the university’s Sex and Gender Lab.

The landmark study was cited across academia, spawning over 1900 peer-reviewed publications, and became one of the largest longitudinal surveys on the psychological and physical well being of 7-12th graders.

Previous estimates of homosexuality and bisexuality among high schoolers had been around 1 percent. So imagine the surprise and confusion when subsequent revisits to the same research subjects found more than 70 percent of the self-reported adolescent nonheterosexuals had somehow gone “straight” as older teens and young adults.

Surprisingly, when given a chance to prank a research, 5-7 percent of students chose to do just that.

It looks like in Iran the figure is more like 17 percent.

  • Pete

    My theory is that alpha males create gays and those mullahs do love their women!

    • MarilynA

      Not so fast. My husband was an alpha male, and so are his sons, and none of them have created any gays. However, I have known more than a few boys who grew up with absentee fathers who are gay.

      • Pete

        I agree. It is a complex subject and I believe there is more than 1 way that gays are “created”. I should have added some caveats to my statement.

        I do believe that you will find more h0m0sexual activity in polygynous societies (which I believe is empirically testable). The people with the harems will be alpha males or if not alpha males they will have the advantage of being the offspring of alpha males (which wears of in a generation or two).

  • MarilynA

    If these surveys are anonymous and given to students in the lower grades they have little meaning. I remember my son and his best friend laughing about the answers they had marked on one of those surveys when they were in the fifth grade. Kids, especially boys, have an impish, mischievous streak in them and will do things to shock adults, especially if they know they can get away with it. (aka anonymous surveys) My kid’s friend said he marked “I have to have a drink every morning before I go to school.” I know for a fact his parents didn’t even keep alcohol in their home. One of them said he marked, “I smoke pot regularly” and their other answers were just as ridiculous since both kids came home directly after school and played together either at my house or the friends. And to think, Federal policies were designed to remedy false problems based on these ridiculous surveys.

  • wesley69

    The Iranian Republic must have an enemy, who they can hang in the streets, to terrorize the rest of the population. To enforce Sharia, examples must be made. When a distraction is needed, an execution is staged and what better victims than gays.

    • Pete

      Every totalitarian regime has to have an enemy, a constant never ending stream of them.

      Mao said it was necessary. George Orwell wrote about it.

      It is how you can prove a government is totalitarian. It is how you can show that a political party is tending in that direction.

  • roccolore

    The gay rights groups never protested against Ahmadinejad, yet wouldn’t allow the ROTC on campus

  • Biff Henderson

    Don’t be surprised if the Mullahs announce the Livestock for Lust interdiction program to steer the bid’ah butt buddies away from behavior that condemns them to Hellfire.

  • William

    17% sounds a bit high. Maybe gays+bisexuals = 17%.
    Gays are closer to 10% of the population.

    • Contemptuous Maximus

      10 percent? Only in the gayest of your dreams.