In my post last night on the “Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees” I said I found it annoying that whenever I read about persecuted homosexuals in the Middle East rarely is the source of the persecution linked to Islamic ideology. Mr. Simpson, the author of the article about Mr. Parsi, reminds me here that one doesn’t always need a shotgun to make one’s point. I had to laugh, because I do tend to be a shotgun type of person rather than one who might choose a fine stilleto as a weapon.
Read our exchange of comments at the original post. I appreciate Mr. Simpson’s point but do still maintain that he could work one sentence into his original article to clarify why homosexuals are persecuted (executed even!) in some Muslim countries. It is unlikely that the audience he reaches with this story are regular readers of Jihad Watch or Atlas Shrugs for instance; and it might serve to illuminate for some why we must guard against radical Islamic thinking entering the US.
Here then is Mr. Simpson’s excellent and informative comment:
Ann, Thank you for your thoughtful response. I do share your concerns. To give you a much clearer idea of the monumental stands I have taken against radical Islam and other extremist ideologies, allow me to provide links to two of the more powerful and popular stories I have written for Digital Journal and Breitbart’s Big Hollywood blogs. I’ll start with one you may appreciate most of all:
From Digital Journal, March 29th, 2008:
RIOTING IN KARACHI, DEATH THREATS AT LIVELEAK, FITNA PULLED
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/252351
A preface on the next one. Andy Breitbart recruited me from Digital Journal in March after I went nuclear over Team Hollywood’s Tea With Ahmadinejad soiree to Iran, especially given all that was going on there. I spent most of March and April ripping AMPAS new ones at Big Hollywood and Digital Journal, and I’m an optioned screenwriter, okay? I could have just shut up and let it ride like everyone else in Hollywood, but I couldn’t keep silent in good conscience. Here is a piece that addresses President Obama’s lame handling of our nation’s worst enemies. Lotsa links to my previous pieces, FYI:
HOLLYWOOD DIPLOMACY ALL AROUND (April 11, 2009)
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/04/11/hollywood-diplomacy-all-around/
You tell me I’m not speaking out as I should. Many times with shotgun blasts as with these two, but in many other cases like my Arsham Parsi/IRQR interview, I focus like a laser on the human stories and tragedies, if you’ll pardon the Bill Clinton paraphrase.
Lastly, I wish to be crystal clear here. You may note from the FITNA piece above, and even since 9/11, that my perceptions of Muslims were not happy ones. Yet as I have been reporting all this time, I have met many fine and sane Muslims, mostly Iranian emigres, who are as sick of the terror, bloodletting and murder by the psycho Islamists as we are. Don’t forget that it is mostly innocent Muslims being mowed down in the streets of Tehran by the basiji, or suffering the worst of terror attacks all over the Middle East.
In WWII, many brave Germans risked their lives to fight the Nazis. They weren’t all SS. Decorated German war hero Field Marshall Erwin Rommel risked and lost his life to try to rid the world of Hitler. We have to be careful not to paint all Muslims with the same bloody brush. If all the one billion-plus Muslims on this earth were megalomaniacs like Osama bin Laden, this world would be a wasteland from top to bottom. They don’t want to see their children blown up by terrorists any more than we do.
Is the Middle Eastern Islamic world f*ed? You bet! Millions, as in Iran and Saudi Arabia, are basically living in the 7th Century. But I can guarantee you most would choose freedom over theocratic slavery and persecution. That said, we have to keep the Islamist killers in our sights and wipe them off the face of the earth if there is ever to be any peace on this planet.
If, for whatever reason, you may think I’m being soft on the subject, read my pieces first. I do not equivocate. I condemn the hateful as surely as I defend the innocent, be it in Iran or right here in the US. The problem with any belief system, religious or political, is extremism. Stalin was an atheist. So was Hitler. When the bodies start piling up, the belief system behind it is irrelevant, be it Atheistic Communism or radical theocratic Islam. The end results are always the same. Don’t make the same mistake they do in seeing all of us as the enemy.
’nuff said. I hope this all answers your questions and concerns. A bit winded perhaps, but you made some very thoughtful points, and I tried to respond in kind. I believe we are mostly in agreement. If radical Islamist extremists move here and kick up sh*t in the West, send ‘em back I say. And isn’t it the extremism of the Left I rant about in my FITNA piece right where you are?
Best, Johnny Simpson.
P.S. Pajamas Media CEO and founder Roger Simon requested a PJTV interview with me and Arsham Parsi by email last night after reading the IRQR post you linked here. We can knock ‘em down one at a time too, you know