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Indeed, the more countries like Canada and now Spain accede to demands for same-sex marriage, the less likely intolerant states may be to cut any slack for their queers, for fear that basic rights today will lead to demands for marriage tomorrow. That may explain the handy little deal the government of Pakistan has made with its queers: "We won't enforce the laws against homosexual activity as long you don't demand civil rights."

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quote:

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On the whole, though, conference participant and director of the international human rights program at U of T's faculty of law Noah Novogrodsky sees an ever widening chasm between conditions in the developed and developing world. He warns against the triumphalism that has greeted the gay marriage victories.

"You're seeing a huge separation between the possibilities in the developed and the developing world," he tells me. "There's a real culture of respect taking root toward gays and lesbians that was unimaginable a few years ago. But in much of the developing world it is more of the same horrific old-style human rights abuse."

Novogrodsky sees no immediate gains elsewhere. "What I'm recognizing is a gulf between the respect for human dignity and fundamental freedom in the developed world and the right to live in the developing world. Connecting those things is difficult."

And will continue to be so as long as the peal of wedding bells drowns out everything else.

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Full article.

Now, i think Wheeler is over-stating for effect, and the article's presentation also over-simplifies his point. And as someone who is benefitting from the campaign for equal marriage rights, i can't agree that this was an elitist campaign -- i do think it was a demand for equality of rights, and i do feel proud of Canada for helping to blaze this trail. At the same time, it's rather appalling to read about gains in marriage rights on one page of a newspaper, and the brutal repression of gay people in states like Saudi Arabia on another. Things do seem to be getting better for us, and worse for queers in most of the world (and that goes for some of the richest countries too, this hardly being gay picnic days in the US of A).

There's some threads on specific cases here already, and some honest diagreement in them. (I've been a bit nasty and sarcastic on one myself just now, in a thread where several others actually were trying to look for solutions, so maybe i have no real right to be even starting this thread. Still....) What i'm hoping is that those who are interested in strategizing on how to support queer rights in Nigeria, or Fiji, or wherever else, can use this thread not for arguing, but for exploring what is being done and what can be done.

We might (just might) be forgiven for hoping that, since no one has regulated the engine that is globalization thus, some progressive messages might be communicated (like improved situations for women & gay people) along with the vapid, the consumerist and the other downright damaging messages we've sent flying into the ether.

So if some homosexuals get full human rights, maybe some other homosexuals will get repressed even more.

On the other hand, if no homosexuals get full human rights, then no homosexuals have full human rights.

This is like one third Catch-22, one third Prisoner's Dilemma, and one third Right Wing Wet Dream.

As for the backlash argument, I don't buy it. It sounds like a North-South version of the same old "stop clamouring for equal rights: it's annoying the establishment and you'll have only yourselves to blame when it slaps you down."