Iraq's official media regulator on Tuesday ordered all media and social media companies operating in the Arab state not to use the term "homosexuality" and instead to say "sexual deviance," the regulator said.
The Iraqi Communications and Media Commission (CMC) said in a statement that the use of the term "gender" was also banned. It prohibited all phone and internet companies licensed by it from using the terms in any of their mobile applications.
The regulator "directs media organizations ... not to use the term 'homosexuality' and to use the correct term 'sexual deviance'," the Arabic-language statement said.
A government spokesperson said a penalty for violating the rule had not yet been set but could include a fine.
Iraq does not explicitly criminalise gay sex but loosely defined morality clauses in its penal code have been used to target members of the LGBT community.
Major Iraqi parties have in the past two months stepped up criticism of LGBT rights, with rainbow flags frequently being burned in protests by Shi'ite Muslim factions opposed to recent Koran burnings in Sweden and Denmark.
More than 60 countries criminalise gay sex, while same-sex sexual acts are legal in more than 130 countries, according to Our World in Data.
© Thomson Reuters 2023.
8 Comments
Sh1mon M4sada
Well that's interesting. So does that mean god didn't create gay people? Is this NOT blasphemy (to deny god's creation)?
ah....the smell of hypocrisy in the evening air....
Lord Dartmouth
God created gay people, yes, but he also created all of us, and we are all sinners. The logical fallacy is to suppose that because he created us, he must necessarily approve of everything we do. That's not the case. He loves all of us, but says, 'If you love me, keep my commandments' (John 14:15).
餓死鬼
Which commandment says “Don’t be gay”?
TaiwanIsNotChina
There's nothing in the commandments about homosexuality being wrong. In fact it would help you with the whole "not coveting your neighbor's wife" bit.
Strangerland
No I’m not. And if the stories about your god are true, he’s done way worse things than I ever have.
Jimizo
So he created people with the desire to have sex with people of the same sex, but disapproves of them having sex with people of the same sex despite having created them with the desire to have sex with people of the same sex in the first place?
Did he do it to trigger himself?
Lord Dartmouth
Jimizo, you know the answers, but you don't want to know. If you're really interested, you could study it for free on the Internet. Man was created with free will. Man fell, just as some of the angels did. That's the thing about free will; we are free to make mistakes. This is not particularly about gay people. We all suffer the effects of original sin. To take an extreme example, would you say, 'So he created some men with the desire to rape women, but disapproves of them doing so despite having created them with the desire to do so in the first place?'
Whether you like it or not, we are put on this earth to work out our salvation. That involves restraining our appetites sometimes. Modern man, in his antinomianism, hates this idea above all others. It applies to heterosexuals as well as homosexuals.
wallace
And when you don't believe in God(s)?