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January began with more horrific news for LGBTs in the Middle East. The Islamic State executed a 15-year-old Syrian boy suspected of being gay by tossing him off a rooftop in the eastern Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor. Such reports are not new, or rare.

The time is ripe for Canada and the United States — two countries where the march of progress has secured marriage equality for LGBTs — to confront lethal homophobia and persecution in the Arab world and Iran.

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Just last month, the Empire State Pride Agenda in New York, an important LGBT human rights NGO, announced that it will disband because it achieved its goals of LGBT equalities over its 25-year history. This was a mistake, in large part because the battle for LGBT protections requires advocacy in Muslim-majority countries.

Canada, to its credit, seeks to provide priority resettlement to Syrian LGBT refugees because of their dire plight. But it can do much more to influence a change in anti-LGBT behaviour in the Middle East.