Iranian-born artist Sooreh Hera caused a stir in The Netherlands last month.

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• Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and his - um, charming - family took this picture when the politico was Arkansas' governor. Ain't it sweet?

• Ryan White's mother talks more about talking to Mike Huckabee.

• What's wrong with Tom Cruise?

• The heat is on at La Mama!

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CBS On Logo journo Jason Bellini isn't taking Doug Ireland's attacks lying down. Yesterday we published Ireland's irrate missive to Bellini in which the veteran newsman blasted Bellini and Logo for not including Iran in their year-of-the-end spectacular. He wrote: "…You call this show-biz fluff you’re doing 'news'?" Way harsh.

Last night, just minutes after posting Happy Endings, we received a note from Bellini to Ireland.

Read it in all it's glory, after the jump…

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Logo patted itself on the back when announced their Jason Bellini-hosted 30-minute weekly news show. Veteran political journalist Doug Ireland, however, wants to slap them across the corporate face for their failure to mention consistently anti-gay Iran during their end-of-the-year spectacular. The frequent Gay City News contributor wrote to Jason directly:

I just watched your half-hour end-of-the-year "news" review on LOGO. And I was truly appalled when, in your oh-so-brief inclusion of Ahmadinejad's infamous "no homosexuals in Iran" statement among the top ten stories of the year, there was not a word about the horrific, lethal campaign of persecution of LGBT people in Iran by its theocratic regime.

Coming just days after Iran's hanging of 21-year-old Makwan Moloudzadeh — for having had sex (at the age of 13) with other boys his own age — aroused worldwide revulsion, your glaring omission of any word about the skein of daily repression which same-sexers face in Iran — Internet entrapment, raids on private homes and parties, arrests, torture, imprisonment, lashings, forced sex-change operations, executions, and the rest — is stunning and incomprehensible.

Your broadcast found time to talk about Ellen's dog (twice) and about the feud between Mr. Trump and Ms. O'Donnell (twice) and other entertainment trivialities, but about the unspeakable persecutions visited on gay people in Iran you and your colleagues were utterly silent. By the way, I have yet to hear a word about the hanging of Makwan on your air. And still you call this show-biz fluff you're doing "news"?

No word on whether Bellini's responded to Ireland's irate missive.

The international press aren't given much freedom in Iran. Thus, no Western journalists were allowed access to Makwan Moloudzadeh, the gay man the state executed earlier this week. The Iranians claim the 21-year old raped another boy eight years ago, when they were both 13. Moloudzadeh and the alleged victims all denied it, saying any admissions were extracted through torture.

While no American reporter can confirm these details, Tehran-based reporter Mitra Khalatbari offers an eye-witness account of Moloudzadeh's trial.

The only witnesses who had given statements to the intelligence police saying they had been raped by Makwan came into court and repudiated those statements, saying that they had been extracted under torture.

Makwan himself told the judge that his admission to the Intelligence Police that he had had anal sex with one boy in 1999 was also obtained by torture, and that he now denied it and proclaimed his innocence.
…
The judge did not bother to order medical examinations to see if rape had taken place, nor did he bother to order medical examinations to see if torture of the witnesses had taken place. The judge's verdict of guilty, and his sentence of Makwan to death, was based purely on his personal speculation.

Khalatbari wrote an article criticizing the trial's legitimacy, but her newspaper editors refused to publish the story for fear of being shut down.

The journalist also tells Gay City News that Moloudzadeh protested his imprisonment with a 10-day hunger strike. Prison officials punished him by shaving his head and marching him through the streets, where civilians reportedly pelted him with eggs, stones and sticks. Moloudzadeh never got to say good-bye to his family. Shame.

Yesterday we reported that Iran's chief justice had flip-flopped on his decision to stay Makvan Moloudzadeh execution for sodomy. International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Campaign reports that the Iranians killed the 21-year old this morning:

[IGLHRC] has learned today that despite an order by the Iranian Chief Justice to nullify his death sentence, Mr. Makvan Mouloodzadeh was executed in Kermanshah Central Prison at 5 a.m. this morning, Iranian time. Neither Mr. Mouloodzadeh's family or his lawyer were told about the execution until after it occurred. IGLHRC is still investigating the facts in this case.

"This is a shameful and outrageous travesty of justice and international human rights law," said Paula Ettelbrick, IGLHRC's executive director. "How many more young Iranians have to die before the international community takes action?"

Mr. Mouloodzadeh was a 21-year-old Iranian citizen who was accused of committing anal rape (ighab) with other young boys when he was 13 years old. However, at Mr. Mouloodzadeh's trial, all the witnesses retracted their pre-trial testimonies, claiming to have lied to the authorities under duress. Makvan also told the court that his confession was made under coercion and pleaded not guilty.

That's enough to ruin the rest of our afternoon.

Iranian homo Makwan Moloudzadeh's luck may have changed. The 21-year has been in prison since this summer for allegedly having sex with another boy when they were both thirteen. Though he had been sentenced to death, the Iranian Chief Justice halted the execution on November 14th. Apparently he changed his mind, because Everyone Group posted a distressing message this morning:

This evening, December 3rd Makwan’s family phoned Ahmad Rafat, a journalist of AKI – ADNKronos International and member of the EveryOne Group, and gave the alarm: Makwan’s case has been re-examined by the Judiciary Authority of Teheran, and yesterday, Sunday December 2nd, the dramatic sentence reached Kermanshah prison, where the young man has been held for some time.

“There is a need for immediate international protest action from the Italian Goverment, the European Parliament and civilized society. We have to make Iran listen to our request for Makwan to be spared. Makwan is innocent, he has been sentenced to death for his homosexuality”.

Moloudzadeh's family is, of course, "distraught" and join Everyone Group in calling for "immediate action". They're asking for you to send letters and postcards to Iran's chief justice and other officials. Those are great and all, but they seem a bit - timid. Send dog poop. No one wants fecal matter in their mail and would do anything to stop a steady stream of poop, even releasing a gay man into the wild.

We've included the addresses and such after the jump…

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Iran may be getting a homo. Doug Ireland reports that the United States government seems poised to deport a gay Iranian national named Hassan Parhizkar.

Since November 7, this mild-mannered 40-year-old gay Iranian businessman from Rockville, Maryland has been sitting in jail in the Frederick County, Maryland Detention Center, housed with common criminals, in the living hell of limbo between the freedom he has known since he came to the United States as a young man 17 years ago and the certain persecution, imprisonment, or worse that will be his fate as a gay man if he is sent back to Iran.

The fuzz snuffed out Parhizkar's freedom earlier this month, when he and his lawyer paid the immigration office a little visit. It seems the man hired a fraudulent lawyer in 1992, which did nothing to help a 1999 deportation order, which Parhizkar didn't know about until 2001, when he was pulled over for a traffic violation.

The government would have deported him, but the Iranian government refused to have him. So, Parhizkar's been living under probation, a probation he claims to have followed to the letter. Regardless, the man's future hangs in the balance.

The Canada-based Iranian Queer Organization has organized a petition to keep Parhizkar in the United States. Whether the government will listen or not remains to be seen. One thing's for sure, a return from sexual exile could spell doom for Parhizkar.

• Australian athletes get naked for a cause: fighting breast cancer. And, of course, they help our testicles, too.

• Hillary Clinton talks AIDS with the Evangelicals. Peter LaBarbera hopes she talks about gay bathhouses.

• Uganda's clergy blast gay rights. This is news?

• Queer cartoon breaks gay ground:

Us2 LLC, headquartered in Omaha, NE has announced that it has developed the first children's animated cartoon series starring a character with two parents of the same gender. Buddy G - My Two Moms and Me, featuring sate of the art 3-D animation, will premiere with the release of a DVD just in time for a holiday delivery this year.

So will social conservative backlash, we're sure.

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• PlanetOut-owned Men magazine named abdominally-bless Johnny Castle as their "Man of The Year". On a somewhat related note, Matt Damon won People magazine's Sexiest Man top slot. Note that the gays have far more flare - and flesh. [See a NSFW shot of Castle, after the jump. And be sure to check out the magazine's new blog.]

• Iranian Chief Justice halts "gay" execution, calls sentence violation of Islamic teachings:

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) has learned that the Iranian Chief Justice, Ayatollah Seyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi, has nullified the impending death sentence of Mr. Makvan Mouloodzadeh, a 21-year old Iranian citizen found guilty of multiple counts of anal rape (ighab), allegedly committed when he was 13 years old. The Iranian Chief Justice described the death sentence to be in violation of Islamic teachings, the religious decrees of high-ranking Shiite clerics, and the law of the land.

For the record, no one accused the man of rape.

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Iranian MP and energy committee member Mohsen Yahyavi had a lot to say about gays during an Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting with the British.

From The Times-obtained meeting minutes:

He said that if homosexual activity is in private there is no problem, but those in overt activity should be executed [he initially said tortured but changed it to executed]. He argued that homosexuality is against human nature and that humans are here to reproduce. Homosexuals do not reproduce.

Tortured and killed? This man means business. The British government, however, doesn't seem to be that concerned. Labour MP Ann Clywd remarked yesterday, "It is of great concern that these attitudes persist and we made it clear what we felt.”

The Times does not quote any such objections.

A Western translator misquoted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said an Iranian presidential aide. Ahmadinejad became an international laughing stock last month when he allegedly told a Columbia University audience, "In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country."

Now, weeks later, an aide insists the translator got it wrong:

What Ahmadinejad said was not a political answer. He said that, compared to American society, we don’t have many homosexuals.

An astute Queerty clarifies further:

…His translator really screwed him. As a Farsi speaker, it was very clear what he really said, he said, “We do not have any execution of gays our country”, the translator missed it, the man has bad luck and cant' catch a break.

Considering Mahmoud's bad politics, the distinction's pretty moot.

As part of his new segment, Gay Roundup, Comedy Central's Steven Colbert invited gay sexpert Dan Savage to explain the newly passed Matthew Shepard Act.

And, of course, what gay roundup would be complete with a little look at Larry Craig and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The results? Hilarious.

The world's been all about gay Iranians since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ridiculously reported that his fair nation has no homos. Never one to miss a trend, the New York Times' Saturday edition published a look at gay life in Iran.

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"Meltdown". That's one word a friend used when describing the trans-centric squabbling over the ENDA. Politicians, lobbyists and journalists have been debating over whether or not transgendered people should be included under ENDA, which could forbid discrimination based on perceived or actual sexual orientation and gender identity. A test vote showed that the majority of politicians objected to the trans-inclusion. Under such pressure, openly gay Representative Barney Frank, who co-sponsored the inclusive ENDA draft, slipped into acquiescence. To keep the bill above water, Frank effectively split ENDA in two: one version protecting gays and another for trans folk. They're now floating alone in an ocean of inequality.

Our government - and much of our culture - deny transgenders their rights because, quite frankly, they can't understand the trans's existence. Our culture does not have mechanisms to deal with "gender deviants." Trannies are a threat to our nation's very foundations. The Alliance Defense Fund's Doug Napier said the law will "strike at the very heart of our American liberties." He must be using the word "liberties" liberally. Napier's not alone, of course. Millions of people - gay and straight - simply cannot muster the imagination to consider trans folk equal. What's more, we have no use for trans people. And, as contributor Dan Avery and editor Andrew Belonsky assert, the American stonewall against trans rights goes much further than 1974 - and even our borders. "Trans" populations exist all over the world and crop up in seemingly unlikely locales, like Iran.

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