MESSAGE TO HISPANIC GLBT PEOPLE AND SUPPORTERS

Do not watch Jose Luis sin Censura.

This Spanish television version of the Jerry Springer Show “promotes verbal abuse and physical violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people,” according to the Gay Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).

The real name of the host who runs this filth is Jose Luis Gonzalez, and he has a history of allowing audience members to use homophobic slurs out loud on live Spanish television to guests on the show. It honestly makes me wonder why the FCC hasn’t got involved the way it has with Howard Stern (who bashed the Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas live for its unruliness at the memorial service of slain college student Matthew Spepard). Not only has Jose Luis allowed the audience to use bad words, he’s even gaybashed guests on the show himself.

Jose Luis sin Censura is just as violent as the Springer show, too. On one occasion, an audience member was allowed to beat and drag a gay man around the stage after the gay man confessed his love to another man.

This, of course, only hits the top of the iceberg. I don’t find many shows out there that promote homophobia. But this show does just that. And the plug needs to be pulled before something terrible happens.

MEHDI KAZEMI IS NOT THE ONLY GLBT FACING DEATH

You have to consider all the GLBT Iranians who have fled their homeland only to face deportation.

One such case is a 40-year old lesbian named Pegah Emambakhsh, who, like 19-year old gay student Mehdi Kazemi, also faces the death penalty if she return to Iran. There are many like these two. And sadly, some of them have been deported, where it’d only be predictable what happened thereafter, as the crime for homosexuality in Iran is death.

In Pegah’s case, she, like Mehdi, is staying in Britain at this time, awaiting deportation. Recently her appeal for asylum was rebuffed by the Court of Appeals, so now Pegah is now taking her case to the High Court, which may have the final say in whether or not she will live or die.

As for Mehdi, he was given a brief stay of deportation, as his case is being reviewed.

Whatever the decisions are on both publicized cases, one thing is for sure: The people in charge of making the ultimate descisions in the cases of both Mehdi and Pegah, as well as in other cases, must take a good long look at themselves in the mirrow before deciding whether or not to have these innocent people shipped back to Iran to be welcomed with a noose put on their necks. Because they are just as human as we are, I don’t care what your sexual orientation is, and we need to respect that.