Iran’s Brad Pitt sorry for pro-gay marriage tweet
Actor Bahram Radan comes under fire for hailing last week's landmark US Supreme Court decision
A leading Iranian actor apologized after a media backlash over a tweet he sent out in support of a historic US Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage last week.
Bahram Radan, known as the “Iranian Brad Pitt,” tweeted a message to his fans that praised the decision to extend gay marriage across all 50 states. He later deleted the tweet, after facing an onslaught of messages slamming his views.
“The US supreme court’s ruling that same-sex marriage is legal was historic, perhaps on the scale of the end of slavery … from Lincoln to Obama,” Radan had tweeted in Persian, according to a translation published by the Guardian.
Homosexuality is a taboo subject in the Islamic Republic and is punishable by death.
“What was published on the internet as my opinion about the US supreme court’s ruling on gay marriage was a mistake and does not reflect the dignity of the Iranian people, for which I apologize,” Radan wrote in a letter to the ultra-conservative Keyhan newspaper, whose director is appointed by the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“We’re living in a country which celebrates marriage as a tradition of the prophet [Muhammad]. American laws have no bearing on the Islamic republic and gay marriage is reprehensible under our social and religious laws and according to our social values,” Radan said, according to the Guardian.