The first story (which on the main page of The Guardian's website is given the very wildly understated heading "Doubts over Iran's no gay claims") explains how Iran in fact has a very high rate of sex change operations. Second only to Thailand apparently:
Am I the only one to find it very hard to imagine why Khomeini would be persuaded to be all kind and understanding of transexuals but still want all sodomites to die?Sex changes have been legal since the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, spiritual leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution passed a fatwa authorising them nearly 25 years ago. While homosexuality is considered a sin, transsexuality is categorised as an illness subject to cure.
The government seeks to keep its approval quiet in line with its strait-laced stance on sexuality, but state support has actually increased since Mr Ahmadinejad took office in 2005.
His government has begun providing grants of £2,250 for operations and further funding for hormone therapy. It is also proposing loans of up to £2,750 to allow those undergoing surgery to start their own businesses.
The second Guardian article is in Comment is Free by the author of an entire book on homosexuality in Arab countries. He makes this interesting point:
Of all the Muslim countries, Iran at the moment is probably the most active in persecuting gay people. This probably has less to do with religion than local political and cultural factors.That makes some sense. Political revolutions anywhere have often been been preceded by rumours of self indulgence and sexual decadence in the ruling class, and I suppose if the revolutionaries are Islamic they may concentrate on alleging homosexual decadence more than heterosexual.Janet Afary and Kevin Anderson, authors of Foucault and the Iranian Revolution, argue that this was a reaction - at least in part - to sexual behaviour in the Shah's court. They refer to "a long tradition in nationalist movements of consolidating power through narratives that affirm patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality, attributing sexual abnormality and immorality to a corrupt ruling elite that is about to be overthrown and/or is complicit with foreign imperialism".
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Khomeini's reasoning was not so different from the Orthodox Jewish (or even strict Christian) stance: men who take the passive role in sexual intercourse are acting contrary to nature because they are taking the female role instead of the male role God intended for them.
He then took the argument a stage further and said in that case, if we allow them to change sex, they are once more aligned with God's will and hence there is no further sin.
Orthodox rabbis would probably go along with the first bit but draw the line at the second: I read somewhere that a Jewish gay activist consulted a very senior Israeli rabbi over the prohibition on gay sex and received a similar answer. The rabbi in question also saw no sin in oral sex, either, though he couldn't understand "why anyone would want to do that"!
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