DERATANY ROCKS GAY ADVOCACY WITH 'HARAM IRAN'
by: Susan Marie Kovalinsky, Gnosis Arts Multimedia

'Haram Iran', written by Chicago attorney and human rights advocate Jay Paul Deratany, made its debut in the Chicago theater district in 2008. Now it moves to the west coast, making its premier there this March 2010 at the Celebration Theater in Los Angeles.

The play, based on the true story of two youths arrested for the 'crimes' of homosexuality and sodomy in Tehran, Iran, in 2005, not only illuminates the bigotry which still exists in such horrific form in 21st century Iran, but serves as a warning that we must remain vigilant always against the eruption of the residual darkness which lay slumbering in the human heart.

Deratany, a personal injury attorney in Chicago, specializing in the rights of birth injured children and their families , is currently representing the Duckett family in the high-profile pending suit against CNN's Nancy Grace. He has also taken on - pro bono - the case of a New York mother and her gay teen son (Rhonda and Michael Mangus of North Tonawanda, Niagara County, New York) involving anti-gay school bullying and death threats, which has moved to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York.

Haram Iran depicts beautifully just how the anti-gay bias - in particular, the deadly and irrational hatred of the gay male sexual act - still maintains its harbor in the Islamic middle East, and sits enthroned there, ready to give the clarion call to those in postmodern democratic nations such as the Untied States who maintain this pernicious and secret malevolence in the subsoil of the culture, ever ready to spring to new action.

Jay Paul Deratany has written poignantly, and his play is a call to vigilance. His work was lauded by the Campaign for Human Rights in Washington , DC, and should be hailed as a symbolic piece of global import for the new century dawning.

From Chicago, to Los Angeles and New York, and with luck, eventually up to Provincetown and Boston , 'Haram Iran' is a beacon of light against much of our current political and cultural darkness.

Watch 'Haram Iran' preview on YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMsKqNTEPW4&feature=player_embedded Full Story. [2/12/10]