Homophobia as a Tool of Statecraft: Iran and Its Queers

Abstract

Homophobia as it relates to the politics of the Middle East is seen as a legitimate response, indeed the only one available to region‟s governments faced with the concerted „incitement to discourse‟ of western human rights groups (Massad 2002 and 2007); or a result of the dissemination of homophobic norms from anti-gay networks in the West (Johnson, this volume); or as a function of religion, Islam in particular. As probable as the first two explanatory factors may be, they overestimate the power of human rights and homophobic networks, and underestimate the reach and agency of Middle Eastern states. We, therefore, want to “let the state back in” (Skocpol 1979). To do this, we treat anti-gay rhetoric as an analytical category, and examine the content, the productive force and the work it does for the deploying power. As such, we see religious anti-homosexual prejudice as a convenient frame to be used by states when it suits their purposes, not as causally independent factor.

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