Iran president misquoted on gays

Ahmadinejad had said: "‘We don’t have homosexuals like in your country’"

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran’s president was misrepresented by Western media when he was quoted saying there were no gays in Iran, and actually meant there were not so many as in the United States, a presidential aide said on Wednesday.

Addressing New York’s Columbia University last month, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad replied to a question about gays in the Islamic Republic saying: “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country.”

Speaking through a translator, he also said: “In Iran we don’t have this phenomenon.”

The remarks drew widespread criticism in the West.

Homosexuality is punishable by death in the Islamic Republic.

“What Ahmadinejad said was not a political answer. He said that, compared to American society, we don’t have many homosexuals,” presidential media adviser Mohammad Kalhor said.

*MSNBC.com