Three LGBTQ-friendly churches in Saskatchewan, Canada were recently targeted with antigay graffiti. Spray painted on each of their front doors was the same hateful message: “The only hope for a sodomite is repentance.”
After vandalizing the buildings last weekend, 36-year-old Amir Bozorgmehr, who is originally from Iran, posted photos of his alleged handiwork to Facebook.
We
Posted by Amir Bozorgmehr on Monday, May 11, 2020
On Saturday, Bozorgmehr was arrested and charged with eight counts of mischief in connection with the vandalism done to the churches, as well as additional vandalism done to a LGBTQ pride mural on a local college campus.
Police say they considered adding hate crime charges, but ultimately decided against it.
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“Section 319 of the Criminal Code refers to incitement of hatred,” police spokesperson Alyson Edwards explains, “however, our investigators did not feel the offenses fit into that category.”
It’s unclear how or when Bozorgmehr entered the country, but prosecutors say they are seeking to have him deported back to Iran.
“Immigration authorities have advised Public Prosecutions that enforcement processes have been completed for this individual and there is a removal order in place that can be enforced,” prosecutor Dan Dahl says.
Related: Vandal Fails Miserably At Writing Homophobic Slur On Gay Couple’s Car
There’s just one problem.
“Because there are no diplomatic relations with Iran, a passport at this time cannot be obtained, as this individual has no identification,” Dahl explains.
Meanwhile, a team of volunteers have already helped the churches clean off the graffiti.
“It just really shows us how much work needs to be done in terms of LGBT+ acceptance, especially in religion,” says Lia Storey-Gamble, a member of Grosvenor Park United Church, which earlier this year led an effort to get conversion therapy banned in the city.
“We are an activist church. We believe in working hard on these issues,” she continues. “This instance shows us how much more work needs to be done.”
“Our church is more accepting than ever. Our love is still strong and we’re ready to do that needed work.”
Related: Church responds to Pride flag vandalism by displaying hundreds more
Cam
Bye bitch.
Heywood Jablowme
Looks like the Shiite has hit the fan!
dougie
Very clever! Thanks for the chuckle.
Troysky
@Heywood Jablowme …..laughed and laughed… good juan! lol
rbernard
If they can’t send him back to Iran where he belongs, then the best thing to do is try to imprint him with behavior modification:
* make him do a ton of diversity training
* requires him do janitorial services at all three churches for the next three years and work with our community.
Aires the Ram
Wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. That religious hatred imbedded in his brain began when he was a small boy.
Michael007
Nothing more disgusting than a filthy effing Muslim spreading hate. And yes, this WAS a hate crime! Send his ass back to the Middle East so he can mingle with the vermin there!
masterwill7
Deportation, his way comes! (Like the Harry Potter tune 😉 “something wicked this way comes” 😛 ) Bye bitch! The nerves to do something like this while we all accept you??? Good luck in Iran!
Creamsicle
Yeah let’s all react to a hate crime with equally demeaning racist language. That will solve everything.
bivector
Yeah, it’s a little disappointing how disgusting some of the comments here are. These people have no idea that they’re as bad or worse than the person they’re talking about.
Kangol2
Oh well, I guess his stay in Canada is coming to an end. Find him a passport or equivalent documents, put him on the first flight to Tehran, and ban him from setting foot in the country again.
carlton
It is, at best, disturbing, that we who have been the victims of so much lethal hate would wish to perpetrate it on someone else. I am not denying that he needs to be subject to the same laws as everyone else. But to wish violence on him for his hate simply continues the vicious cycle.
Den
Islam is no more extreme in its calls for death to gay people as the “old testament” is, and there are no shortage of clerics in the US who would emulate what has been done in some Muslim countries.
And truth be told, the Iranians are just as ambiguous in their support for their rulers as Americans are for Trump.
Plus, if the US and Great Britain had not mucked around in the Middle east carelessly for the past 100 or so years it would be a very different place.
Chrisk
Den
You’re trying to compare them like their both the same. Christianity can be bad yes. However, Islam in Muslim countries is an absolute nightmare. It is by far the most dangerous.
If you google Iran and gay it’s story after story of people being hanged in public squares. Iran loves to execute gay men. Sometimes whole groups of them. Large crowds even come out to cheer it on. It’s a very gruesome way to die as plays well with others mentioned.
Hussain-TheCanadian
@ChrisK
As usual, you run your mouth off without knowing diddly about what you’re talking about, it’s a sign of both ignorance and hubris, an alignment quite obviously you’re afflicted with.
Tell me, what do you mean by “Islam in Muslim countries is a complete nightmare”? It sounds like a half thought out sentence, it’s more akin to drivel, ramblings by a distorted mind that cant think within reason. Out of the 50 something Muslim majority countries out there in the world, how many have you visited?
You have a problem with couple of hundred Iranians watching and cheering on an execution? Do you know how many of your fellow Americans cheer and celebrate the oppression and murder of gays and trans?? Every time a report comes out of a gay man being murdered in the world, how many american anti-gay chat rooms, blogs, and chat groups light up in celebration?
Your anti-Muslim hatred is disgusting and reprehensible, no wonder Trump is your president, you’re as sickly with hate as he is, you and your ilk deserve him.
Hussain-TheCanadian
@ Plays well with others
Execuse me, sorry not sorry to rain on your parade of the mentally ill but who are you calling “filthy subhuman savages”?
Aires the Ram
@Den: Before those on here who have no education in world history go on about the “Iranian problem” being the sole fault of the United States, one should look up the “Sykes–Picot Agreement”. In brief, it was a 1916 secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France,[1] with assent from the Russian Empire and Italy, to define their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in an eventual partition of the Ottoman Empire. The agreement was based on the premise that the Triple Entente would succeed in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I and formed part of a series of secret agreements contemplating its partition. The primary negotiations leading to the agreement occurred between 23 November 1915 and 3 January 1916, on which date the British and French diplomats, Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot, initialled an agreed memorandum.[2] The agreement was ratified by their respective governments on 9 and 16 May 1916.[3]
Prior to the Sykes-Picot agreement being implemented, national boundaries in the middle-east were built along the lines of the various and sundry religious tribes of the larger Islamic faith. Name the sect of Islam that you wish, and they by-and-large had their own region and in certain cases their own country altogether. The Sykes-Picot agreement, which the United States had NO PART OF, really screwed up the balance of power in the middle-east, and sent the various tribes of Islam warring against each other, to this very day. So, before you go off on American involvement in the middle-east, as fraught with difficulty and mistakes as it may very well be, learn the history. The problems in the middle-east didn’t start a mere 19 years ago. Read………….Learn. [Note: The brief history of Sykes-Picot presented here just barely scratches the surface. In your browser, look up “Sykes-Picot agreement” for much more information.]
Hussain-TheCanadian
No you still need to be more specific, it sounds like you’re generalizing, are you talking about Iranians? Muslims? Those specific several hundred people? Members of biased judiciary that decided to murder two teenagers in cold blood? Who are you talking about?
Besides you live in one of the most backward western country on the planet, are you sure you want to throw the words “subhuman ” and “savages” around so lightly?
Hussain-TheCanadian
Yeah I dont have patience for those who hide behind their religion to justify gay bigotry, hatred, and murder either.
You know what else I dont have patience for, calling the entirety of the Iranian nation “a cesspool of a nation”. I’ve never seen you say that about the United States, a country that can be easily described as a “cesspool” (if a person only looks at one part it while ignoring the whole).
voyy
Deport him to Saudi Arabia for Homosexual Crimes written on his Stateless Passport
ZoltanPepper
“Looks like the shiiite has hit the fan” (HeywoodJablome). Priceless!
nm4047
I’m guessing if he was deported to the land of his birth (assuming it is Iran), he would be treated like royalty for targeting a christian place of worship.
Den
The Christian community in Iran is somewhere around 750,000 people and it is the fastest growing religion in Iran. You really need to be a little more circumspect in your rants. Persia is a very old and civilized country unfortunately in the grips of a regime they have great ambivalence about and for which America bears some responsibility.
Black Pegasus
How is it there’s no mugshot of this guy? Googled his name and there’s plenty of articles but none will publish his photo.
“Amir Bozorgmehr“
aL2000
Where in the article does it indicate he hopes he does not get deported back to Iran ?
Saps48
Yeah, I was looking for that part of the article too
Den
Iran may have horrible rulers, but the people tend to love Americans, and it is a very middle class country that had been quite modern and secular until the US engaged in its typically poorly planned nation building.
Saps48
I just watched a Canadian news report and it looks like after they released him for the first three churches, he went out and spray painted three more churches, plus the local police department building
o.codone
Okay. Comments are calling Muslims “sub human” and “muzzies”. Is there an editor in the house? I thought for a minute that this was a conservative news site. Anyway, aren’t we usually condeming Christians for hatred, bigotry and bias? Now, what? We’re sticking up for this Christian church? Once the paint is erased these places of worship will come back and attack us again for being gay. Why do we care if they got spraypainted? This Q post points out how effing mixed up our community is in terms of who/whom we hate and what to do about it. Now we hate muzzies? We hate immigrants? What’s the theme of this party anyway? I don’t know who / whom I should hate. Clarify please.
Saps48
It seems the churches he targeted are Unitarians and other gay-friendly denominations. A couple of them even have rainbow flags on their signage.
Hussain-TheCanadian
Apparently not O.Codone, apparently not.
Hating on Islam and Muslims is easy. When some @sshole Muslim does something, yup lets attack all Muslims, Islam itself, and the entirety of the Middle East; this thread is just proof that hatred, generalization and hypocrisy is not a Muslim thing, its a gay thing too, more correctly actually, a human thing, a human failing.
I’m glad that others have not lost their minds and went on a rant of hatred, generalization and stupidity. Thank you O.codone, Cam, Kangol, Den, Black P. and Heywood (as I Shiite Muslim myself, i laughed).
Den
So, turns out the place where he is/was living: The Lighthouse, is an assisted living facility for the mentally ill.
That immediately changes the nature of the story.
Clearly he either went further off the deep end or was off his meds.
Hussain-TheCanadian
Whats even more fascinating Den, when he appeared in court today, he quoted the Book of revelations as a defense; it makes me wonder who he’s been talking to at the Lighthouse??
iminheatlikeacat
One look at the guys Facebook page shows he is a hateful, racist asshole. I’m glad he will get deported. I hope it causes as much disruption to his life as possible.
michel_banen
He vandalized churches because they have a different belief than he does. So without religion there would not have been a problem. That makes one think. Good that there are more open minded churches but still…. gay hate is usually based on religious beliefs.
Cam
Right wing religious nuts are a danger to society. Just like right wing Christians here in America have been attacking us, women, and minorities for ages, this guy also deserves to be locked up.
Part of this is that for decades the media has been protecting bigots by letting them hide behind the words “Religious Freedom”, and the media using those words instead of calling bigotry and hate by those words.
Aires the Ram
AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION
Amendment 1
Freedom of religion, speech, and the press; rights of assembly and petition
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Cam
@Aires the Ram
What a shock, the right wing troll account can’t make a point so posts something hoping people will think it made a coherent argument.
It’s interesting though that all of you right wingers ONLY defend “religious freedom” when it is condoning bigotry and hate. I didn’t see all of you supporting those churches that said prohibiting gay marriage was an attack on THEIR religious freedom because they supported it. Hmmm, where were you on that one?
Additionally the 1st Amendment says that the U.S. will not support a state religion, but what it DOESN’T give religions the right to do is interfere with OTHER’S rights. i.e. if the Mormon church doesn’t want to allow LGBT people membership, they can do that. What they CANNOT do, is demand that Utah prohibit businesses from serving LGBT people. i.e. their right to “Religious Freedom” ends at their doorstep. They can live their lives in their church how they want, but they cannot force others not in their religion to live by their rules.
It’s interesting that you right wingers claim to love the Constitution and yet none of you seem to actually read and understand it.
Aires the Ram
Did you read my previous post in this thread about the Sykes-Picot Agreement? There was a lot of information there. The constant slinging around of the term “right wing troll account”, “right wingers” is nothing more than an ad hominem attacks against those you profess to dislike. It may get the unsuspecting readers ‘attention’ in the first sentence or two, but there’s never much of substance past that, but ‘attention’ is what you seek anyway. You should be pleased.
Nowhere did I ever say that religious freedom ever meant that one denomination could run roughshod over another in the name of their ‘religious freedom’. The Constitution doesn’t say that, if you would ever take the time to read, and understand it. Go ahead, call me “another right-wing troll account” for the 50th time on here, but it’s like crying wolf too many times, it loses its meaning and nobody respects it or pays any attention anymore.
Cam
@Aires the Ram
So to summarize your last response. You couldn’t argue against anything I said and are hoping your word salad will deflect from that fact.
Trolling behavior. If it makes you sad to get called one, no problem, stop being one.
Mattster
How did he get to Canada with no passport or even ID? I’ve known several Iranians and their documents (post revolution) were always heavily scrutinized. This nut job winds up in Canada with no ID?
And he posts pictures of his crimes on his Facebook page? What an idiot.
And why isn’t his mugshot all over the place?
Evji108
There’s a price for letting in people who don’t appreciate or are opposed to Western culture. Letting refugees in un-vetted without restriction who still live in the cultural dark ages is careless and dangerous. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way back to Iran