10
GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
Death squads
Continued from page 1
"What is the judgment for sodomy and lesbianism?" Sistani's site asks.
"Forbidden," comes the answer. "Punished, in fact, killed. The people involved should be killed in the worst, most severe way of killing.”
Currently, Sistani's site says, “Question: What is the view on a man embracing another man with lust, and go about kissing one another with sexual desire? What if they go even further and enter the domain of deviant sexual behaviour? Answer: All of this is haram even if there might be difference in the degree of prohibition.”
"Haram" is that which is forbidden in Islam.
February 2, 2007
"Allegedly, three fatwas. [Islamic legal pronouncements] would have been issued by Islamic clerics authorizing 'good Muslims' to hunt and kill homosexuals," the U.N. report states. "[The Human Rights Office] was also alerted to the existence of religious courts, supervised by clerics, where homosexuals allegedly would be 'tried,' 'sentenced' to death and then executed."
Both Tatchell and the UNAMI report expound on some of the attacks on LGBT Iraqis. UNAMI's report says, “At least five homosexual males were reported to have been kidnapped from Shaab area in the first week of December by one of the main militias. Their personal documents and information contained in computers were also confiscated."
"The mutilated body of Amjad, one of
the kidnapped, appeared in the same area after a few days," it continues.
Tatchell, meanwhile, spoke to Ali Hili,
The Human Rights office was alerted to religious courts, where gays are tried, sentenced to
death and executed.
head of the Iraqi LGBT UK Abu Nawas organization, made up of expatriate queer
Iraqis living in Britain. Hili is also a member of Tatchell's group, OutRage.
"Sistani is not even Iraqi," Hili noted. "He is an Iranian national who has set himself up as a religious leader in Iraq. He wants to impose an Iranian-style theocracy on the Iraqi people."
In Tatchell's report, Hili details eight people who were killed, and one who was forced into hiding, because of the militias' crusades against LGBT people.
Activists like Hili, who said that discreet homosexuality was tolerated under Saddam Hussein's rule, noted that the power vacuum in the country is contributing to the violence. He is doubtful that President Bush's plan to increase the number of troops will help the gay community.
Everett
Continued from page
So you're not a big fan of the gay rights struggle?
Well I am, but I don't think many gay people are. If you put someone who worked at Stonewall in the Roxy, everyone will move to the other side of the room. They'll hate them. They don't want to seem like they're doing the dirty work.
So let's look at some of the work they've done and see if you'd go along with it. Would you ever get married or sign up for domestic partnership?
Not marriage, no. I think it's pointless. But having civil rights as a couple for health and taxes and benefits, I'm totally into. Marriage, to me, is a waste of time whether you're gay or straight.
Because of your party boy nature? No, because you can't put down on paper something that's not quantified on paper. The last thing I want to do as a gay man is clone straight society.
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through movie in many ways, and we haven't seen anything else of that magnitude since. There's a black cinema and a Hispanic cinema, but there really isn't a gay cinema. Do you think there's one coming?
Yes, but at the same time, gay people aren't like the Jews or the blacks. They're not enough of a community, and I think they're too self-hating to be a community. If they wanted to have their own cinema, they'd have it already. Right around the time my film The Next Best Thing was coming out, Paramount studios really thought I had a gay audience from My Best Friend's Wedding. They thought they could get all of the gay community to come out to the film. But they weren't going to budge because the movie wasn't fast and chic enough for them. If the movie had been successful, it would have opened the doors for more gay cinema.
Paramount didn't promote that film within the gay community.
That's absolutely not true.
I didn't see any ads in any of the gay
newspapers.
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from around the country to Miami to promote the movie. It was my idea, and it's the first and last time that will ever happen.
I explained that it was my big opportunity. If the movie had brought in $100 million, I would have been made, but the gay community would also have carved themselves a niche. There would have been film after film in Hollywood after that, and they would have been seeking out gay ac-
tors.
'I'm not into Abercrombie and Fitch or cherry deodorant and cinnamon-flavored lips. I like
the smell of sweat. I don't like fashion on men particularly."
So, you are an activist.
No, I'm not. I was doing my thing, which just so happened to coincide with the thing that everyone else was doing at the time. But after the wreckage of that film, I became another meaningless face. That was my moment and I blew it.
You blew it, or the studio blew it or the community blew it?
We all blew it. It was our moment together. My moment with the world.
Do you feel burned or would you do another film in that vein?
I'd do any film that was good. But it's not in my world anymore.
You sound sort of almost bitter about it. I'm not bitter, but to be honest, we're being entertained out of our minds anyway. We can't really look at anything else and there are so many more important things than whether the queens are happy or not in the world at the moment. We're on the edge of an abyss. I don't think it really matters at the moment whether there's gay cinema or not.
Do you still consider yourself to be a party boy?
No.
What's your life like today?
Life today is a lot quieter. I write a lot in the mornings. I get up early. I exercise a lot. I sometimes go out. I travel a lot, so if I pass by one of my favorite places and it's a weekend, I might go out, but the term 'party boy' in the American sense? No, I can't stand it. It's middle-class, it's racist and everything I don't like. The circuit is kind of terrifying to me.
That comes across in the book. In the beginning, you talk a lot about partying and traveling and having nothing but fun, but then you get very serious about life in general and you start doing charity work, and that wasn't even your idea, it was your publicist's.
I did a bit of charity before that, but yes. So what are you doing in regard to charity now?
You know charity is another stupid word. It's one of the most disgusting words I think
on the planet because it's really the politically correct word to describe our own vicious meanness.
I don't do charity work. I sometimes go on trips and try to write stories about things that are happening, but I don't really consider it charity. It's what I just happen to be doing at the moment.
I think charity is an awful word. It's sort of like tolerance, which is one of the nastiest words. It's really only a shade paler than intolerance.
The fact that we accept all these words and don't question any of them I find unbelievable.
Again, it's because we're entertained out of our minds, but we're not thinking, no one's questioning anything.
Would you ever just settle down with one guy?
Maybe. You never know what's going to happen. Definitely I could settle down, but I'd have to stop moving around so much. Eventually I'd like to, yes.
There are hundreds of gay men reading this, I'm sure they'll be happy to know that. v8ewhat's your idea of the perfect man for you?
I like Latino or Arab men. I don't have a type, necessarily.
That's fascinating. You just shocked half of America, probably.
Well, I'm not into Abercrombie and Fitch or cherry deodorant and cinnamon-flavored lips. I like the smell of sweat. I don't like fashion on men particularly.
You write a lot in the book about how movie stars are prim and proper and how they tuck things in. Have you had any work done?
No, not yet. I might do it. It's difficult on guys, because you can't wear makeup all the time so it tends to look weird, but I definitely might try it.
You look great and you still could play any role that's thrown your way. What do you think of the youth pushing in on Hollywood? Does that offend you?
No, I think the thing that's offensive isn't the performers. It's the writers and the plots that are offensive. It's formulaic and unimaginative. It's all about wannabe relationships, fantasy versions of humanity and violence.
And then there are all those awful sitcoms like Friends and Sex and the City, which I find really horrible.
Would you ever do a sitcom?
Not any more, no. It wouldn't sustain my interest to work like that. Some of them are brilliant and really clever, but I couldn't do
it.
If there's a guy out there who thinks he's perfect for you—
How does he get a hold of me? Through you.
After the interview we sat and chatted about mutual friends and ambition, and what it takes to make it to the top. Commenting it could be lonely at the top, Everett said with a twinkle in his eye, "Lonely in the middle."
Next up for Everett is a new film based on an old British movie series called Centurions, about a headmistress at a girl's school. In the old films, the mistress was always played by a man in drag: Everett's next role.
How will he play it? "Big boobs, gorgeous legs, but a Camilla look."