CORRECTED: Outrage turns to laughter at Ahmadinejad NY speech

(Corrects Anthony Weiner's title in paragraph 14 to member of the U.S. House of Representatives, from New York City councilman.)

By Mark Egan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Vilified as a Holocaust denier, a supporter of terrorism and a backer of Iraqi insurgents, the president of Iran was actually able to make New Yorkers burst into laughter -- but not at a joke.

"In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at Columbia University on Monday in response to a question about the recent execution of two gay men there.

"In Iran we do not have this phenomenon," he continued. "I do not know who has told you we have it."

Loud laughs and boos broke from the audience of about 700 people, mostly students at the Ivy League school whose garb included "Stop Ahmadinejad's Evil" T-shirts.

Everyone from presidential candidates to September 11 families had expressed outrage that Ahmadinejad would speak there.

After his assertions that Israel persecutes Palestinians and that Iran's nuclear program is for energy not weapons, the Iranian leader's comment on gays broke the tension.

But it spurred strong reaction too.