The U.S. State Department must not stand idly by if the Iraqi government fails to protect basic human rights, even if the persecution stems from traditional cultural or religious beliefs.

We applaud Colorado Congressman Jared Polis for his efforts last week to shine the spotlight on the killings of homosexuals in Iraq, and to press the State Department to demand accountability from the Iraqi government.

The first openly gay man to be elected to the House, Polis has been investigating the treatment of gays in Iraq for several months, according to The Post's Michael Riley. His research led to the discovery of a transgender Iraqi man who told the congressman he had been arrested, beaten and raped by security forces with Iraq's Ministry of Interior.

Human-rights groups have passed information to Polis that claims another man was beaten into confessing he belonged to a gay-rights group and that the man had been sentenced to execution by an Iraqi court.

Polis, who toured Iraq last week, passed along a letter outlining his grim findings to State Department officials in Baghdad. He told Riley: "We will see whether the Iraqi government is serious about protecting the human rights of all Iraqis, and we can also see what role our own State Department can play in helping to protect this minority in Iraq."

The New York Times reported last week that the killings of gays had escalated. The paper reported a 2005 decree by the influential Shiite cleric Ali al-Sistani that called for gays and lesbians to be killed "in the worst, most severe way of killing."

In the past two months, at least 25 men and boys were killed, usually by multiple gunshots, their bodies often left with signs in Arabic that declared: "pervert."

Meanwhile, Iraqis are murdered for many reasons, greatly complicating the situation on the ground. It's hard to imagine the country will have much stability or peace if it can't quell such things as religious killings and the so-called "honor killings" of women who may have had extramarital relations.

And, obviously, the freshman Colorado congressman's impact on such things is greatly limited.

But because of his position as an openly gay Democratic representative serving while his party controls Washington, Polis has a unique opportunity to press the issue. We hope he continues to encourage the State Department to act, and continues to talk about these issues often relegated to the shadows.

We realize our nation has its own issues to worry about when it comes to treatment of gays and lesbians. But we've lost and risked far too many of our troops to help establish and protect Iraq's new government to stand by and watch Iraqis, especially if their government is involved, murder their own in blatant defiance of basic human rights.