U.S. ambassador to Germany: 'Horrific actions' of Iran equal to ISIS

The most high-profile US ambassador in Europe, Richard Grenell, compared on Saturday the Islamic State's brutality with the execution sprees in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The US ambassador to Germany wrote in the federal republic's largest circulation paper BILD: "The recent press reports, first carried by The Jerusalem Post, that the Iranian regime publicly hanged a 31-year-old man for being gay should be a wake-up call for anyone who supports basic human rights. Politicians, the UN, democratic governments, diplomats, and good people everywhere should speak up – and loudly," adding "Iran’s horrific actions are on par with the brutality and savagery regularly demonstrated by ISIS."Islamic State has engaged in public executions of gay men, including tossing gay men from buildings.Iran's mullah regime and the Islamic State despise the LGBT community and both prescribe capital punishment for gays and lesbians. As of 2016, the LGBT human rights advocacy organization OutRight Action International documented 90 murders carried out by the Islamic State during the period 2014-2016.According to a 2008 British Wikileaks dispatch, the Islamic Republic of Iran executed “between 4,000 and 6,000 gays and lesbians” since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. Grenell wrote: "This is not the first time the Iranian regime has put a gay man to death with the usual outrageous claims of prostitution, kidnapping, or even pedophilia. And it sadly won’t be the last time they do it either. Barbaric public executions are all too common in a country where consensual homosexual relationships are criminalized and punishable by flogging and death. In Iran, where children as young as nine can be sentenced to death, gay teenagers are publicly hanged in order to terrify and intimidate others from coming out."He noted, "Being gay is a death sentence in eight countries and criminalized in 70 more. LGBT status or conduct means arrest, imprisonment, and violence for people who are simply dating or falling in love. Governments that are members of the United Nations have an obligation to protect, respect, and uphold the dignity and fundamental freedoms of their people."The Post first reported in the major media about the Iranian regime's public hanging of a 31-year-old man based on the clerical regime's lethal anti-gay law.  Grenell said in his opinion column: "While a student at Evangel University, a Christian liberal arts college in Missouri, I was taught by biblical scholars that 'all truth is God’s truth, no matter where it is found.' The truth for LGBT people is that we were born gay. Enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the idea that all of us are born free and equal in dignity and rights. People can disagree philosophically about homosexuality, but no person should ever be subject to criminal penalties because they are gay." He concluded his article noting, "India, Trinidad and Tobago, Angola, and Belize have recently decriminalized consensual same-sex sexual conduct. But there’s still much more work to be done. Reasonable people can help by speaking out when young gay men are publicly hanged in Iran or shot in Chechnya. And government officials must work harder to demand that UN members decriminalize homosexuality."