Proof It’s Not A Choice: The Gays Of Iraq

Over the years, I’ve had gay friends and family and seen them struggle. It never seemed to me a path someone would “choose,” but what do I know?

But this quote from TIME Magazine proves to me, it’s NOT a choice:

Open quoteI don’t care about the militias anymore because they’re going to kill me anyway — today, tomorrow or the day after.Close quote
— SA’AD, a gay man in Sadr City, Iraq, on a spate of murders that has targeted the city’s gays; 25 people have been killed during the past two months.

If gayness were a choice, there’d be no gays left in Iraq–the executions of 400 gay Iraqis (and 4,000 gay Iranians) would’ve forced everyone into strict heterosexuality. Instead, gays are still gay, and some are moving from safehouse to safehouse, dodging religious militias and the police.

It’s not a choice. People are able to do almost anything to survive (even eat their friends) but they can’t change who they are. Even when death squads are knocking on the door.