I am more that willing to own up to intolerance of issues like this.

Heck, and to intolerance of people who aren't intolerant of them, too.

I'm sure there's some excuse, somewhere.

These protected classes remind me of zoo animals. Dangerous, to be kept away from me and mine, and ultimately, pitiful. I guess I failed Diversity, again. I have, however, led a long and happy life playing by my rules.

I followed that story from Saudi Arabia with great interest - executions for sorcery and witchcraft are actually a much bigger problem in Nigeria, a "Christian" country (Christian in name, although in actual practice very different), although it gets far less attention.

Nigeria is a Christian country only in the sense that the current government is mostly Christian. The country is actually about 1/3 Christian, 1/3 animist, and 1/3 muslim.

I wonder which part of the country most of those executions take place? I wager 100 quatloos on the parts controlled by shar'ia!

The difference is that victims of African witch-hunts aren't formally executed by Church or State - they're lynched by superstitious villagers following ancient tribal customs. See here for a recent Kenyan example:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8119201.stm

In Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, "sorcerers" are formally tried, convicted, and executed by the state, with the full support of the Islamic establishment. Note that it was the religious police who arrested the poor bugger who just got beheaded.

The butt squeeze was definitely pretty funny...

A butt squeeze sounds gross, but it's certainly not worth fining people an average life's wages (in that part of the world) over. Welcome to Islam, the Religion of Pieces (an arm here, a leg over there, bomb belt remains across the road, etc.)

How dare you be all judgmental and stuff, just because they're killing people for bullshi- ah, reasons that don't make sense to you?

It's their CULTURE, don't you understand??!?

While I agree the whole thing is a ridiculous over reaction, that was no mere butt squeeze. He did the squeeze first and then reached around further and literally stuck a finger or two in, causing the other guy to clench his cheeks and jump off the little pile of loving. No wonder it attracted unwanted attention.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. These guys know what is acceptable in Iran or wherever and pushed the envelope and faced the consequences. As simple as that. If you are gay and in Iran, then you can as well get asylum in the million plus places which are sympathetic to gays, otherwise you stay put and keep your feelings to yourself. Similarly, if you try to do something sensational knowing fully well that you could have heavy consequences for doing so, you have no right to crib when you are caught and made to face the consequences or if the consequences were more than what you expected. These guys don't get my sympathy by any yardstick. The witchcraft guy may get my sympathy if the whole thing was complete bullshit which was politically motivated...if instead, he was doing some human sacrifice or something of that sort, then there is no problem with beheading him