Got a blog tip? Contact us
« The Pirates and the Mouse | Main | What do pharmaceutical giants and anti-abortion nuts have in common? »
Dramatic Headlines on the Rise!!!
I hadn't read Gay City News before (for the same reason that I also haven't read Ebony or Guns & Ammo), but the headline in last week's issue - beneath a picture of two young, blindfolded men having nooses tightened around their necks - jumped out at me:
Iran Executes Two Teens
Human Rights Groups Denounce Punishment as Anti-Gay, Barbaric.
It pushed all of my buttons: anti-death penalty; pro-gay rights; afraid of organized religion weilding political power. Imagine my surprise when the article began
After an international outpouring of anger from gay organizations at the news that the Iranian government had executed two young men because they were homosexual, human rights groups are saying that while they strongly object to executing minors the two men may have committed a crime. "The only thing that we have been able to corroborate is that they were convicted of a sexual assault on a 13-year-old boy," said Ariel Herrera, acting director of OUTfront. (italics added)
The rest of the article is a series of outraged quotes from various human rights and gay rights organizations made before the actual charges against the boys were revealed.
I don't mean to cavil about Iran's horrible human rights record, nor dispute that homosexual conduct can and has resulted in executions in Iran in the past. I won't pretend that the execution of juvenilles - even for sexual assault on a minor - doesn't make me queasy. And I take seriously this editorial, run later in the paper, that questions the authenticity of the rape charge.
Still, the inflamatory headline is almost entirely contradicted by the article that follows. If they had time to rewrite the entire article, how did they manage to miss the headline?
Posted by Charles Star on 08/08/2005 | Permalink
Comments
Yes, but they did in fact kill the 13-year-old as well as the 18-year-old involved.
Posted by: toby | Aug 8, 2005 3:16:07 PM



