Life for Iraqi gays gets worse and worse.

Remember one of the excuses given by George Bush for invading Iraq: it was to fight theocratic extremists who have no respect for human rights. So who did Bush put into power? Of course theocratic extremists who have no respect for human rights. In fact Bush put into power individuals who are murderers. And some of the favorite victims are gay men.

Saddam Hussein was no libertarian. But the fact remains that homosexuals were better off under his secular government than under the theocratic authoritarians put into power by George Bush. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq has issued a report on the troubled state of this country -- all but destroyed by Bush’s “nation building”. (George Bush engages in nation building the same way he provided disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.)

The UN report notes that: “Armed Islamic groups and militias have been know to be particularly hostile towards homosexuals, frequently and openly engaging in violent campaigns against them. There have been a number of assassinations of homosexuals in Iraq.”

Another new problems in Iraq, which didn’t exist under Saddam, is the “existence of religious courts, supervised by clerics, where homosexuals allegedly would be ‘tried’, ‘sentenced’ to death and then executed.”

The Iraqi theocrats in power are not happy with the report since it contained facts “we cannot accept here in Iraq”. This includes speaking “about the phenomenon of homosexuality and giving them their rights. Such statements are not suitable to the Iraqi society. This is rejected.”

The UN says that intolerance against homosexuals has long existed in Iraq but that “they have escalated in the past year.” The killers are armed militias directly tied to the government. And the UN notes: “The current environment of impunity and lawlessness invites a heightened level of insecurity for homosexuals in Iraq.”

One gay man told the Gay City News of London: “Things were bad under Saddam for gays but not as bad as now. Then, no one feared for their lives. Now, you can be gotten rid of at any time.” from the “liberated” Iraq said: “Before the invasion, we never experienced any kind of trouble being gay in Iraq. Saddam was a tyrant. But while he was in power, discrete homosexuality was usually tolerated. There was certainly no danger of gay people being assassinated by religious fanatics.”