Backing gays is for 'capitalists'-Ahmadinejad

US: Supporting homosexuality is the stuff of hardline capitalists who do not care about real human values, Iran's president said Monday.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an interview on CNN that homosexuality is a "very ugly behavior" that he said was banned by "all prophets and all religions and all faiths." In New York to attend the UN General Assembly, Ahmadinejad said that just because some countries tolerate homosexuality, that does not mean his criticism of it amounts to a denial of people's freedom.

He ridiculed politicians and parties who, he said, approve of gays and lesbians just to win "four or five additional votes." More broadly, he said tolerating homosexuality had nothing to do with supporting human development."This kind of support of homosexuality is only engrained in the thoughts of hard-core capitalists and those who support the growth of capital only, rather than human values," the president said through an interpreter.

AFP