Well, not exactly, but close.

A gay Iranian man was facing extradition back to Iran. After finding out that his Iranian boyfriend had been hanged for sodomy, he went to the British courts seeking asylum. Facing certain death if he were to be returned to Iran, Britain first first refused his request, as did notoriously liberal Holland.

In March, Britain agreed to reconsider the case and the European Parliment implored them to “look favorably” on it. He just recently was granted his requested asylum.

Now let me briefly change the facts slightly, while keeping the jist of the story completely the same.

Two men were standing at the top of a 42 story building. One of the men, the building owner, told the other man, who was a visitor, “You have stayed here longer than I said you could. I will now have to throw you off of the top of my building.”

“But I face certain death if you do that!” The other man replied. “You must let me stay here, on top of your building, for I am not hurting anything.”

“Absolutely not. I only said you could stay here for so long. Once you have been thrown off of the top of my building, it is not my responsibility what happens to you. I will come back in one month to throw you off.”

Meanwhile, the visitor asked and asked all around the building to all the different workers to see if any of them could help him. One compassionate worker did take up his case, and implored the owner to reconsider.

The owner returned to the visitor. “I have decided that since you will almost surely be killed if you were to be thrown off of the building, I will let you stay here, since you are not hurting anything by staying.”

Hence the building owner did not throw the man off of the top of his tall building.