From Eric Dondero:

An unlikely supporter of gay rights and woman's rights indeed. Diehard social conservative former Senator Rick Santorum made an impassioned plea for human rights at last night's debate. He was responding to foreign policy statements of Cong. Ron Paul.

The Advocate, a gay publication, called Santorum's remarks, "the most surprising twist of the debate."

[I don't take the position] that we have to go around and apologize for the fact that we've exerted our influence to create freedom in the world. I don't apologize for that. I don't apologize for the fact that the Iranian people were free at one time, and now are under a Mullah-ocracy that tramples the rights of women, tramples the rights of gays, tramples the rights of people all throughout their society. And is the greatest supporter of terrorism in the Middle East and around the World.

Just last week it was reported out of Iraq, that the Iranian government is actively supporting Anti-Gay Death Squads in aligned Shi'ite controlled areas of the country.

From Digital Journal "Clerics urge crack-down" Aug. 12:

Two gay men were killed in Sadr City, a local official said Saturday. Baghdad Police found the bodies of four more, after clerics urged a crackdown on a perceived spread of homosexuality. As in Iran, the targeted killing of gays is Shiite extremist SOP.

Coupled with the Iranian leadership's exporting of their anti-gay pogrom to Iraq now in the form of Shiite extremist death squads, it appears homosexuals will have just as tortured and limited an existence in Iraq as in Iran now.

Ironically, Paul often called a "libertarian," made no mention of human rights or of repressive Islamist regions, in his remarks.

Photos of two gay men executed in Iran in 2007.