It is important to keep our main focus on the struggle for gay freedom and equality here in the United States where the forces of anti-gay repression are constantly looking for ways to undermine and reverse our progress.
But it is also worth paying some attention to the abusive treatment of gays and lesbians elsewhere in the world. In many countries outside Western Europe, their situation is much more vulnerable than our own, in some cases dire. Gay progress in the U.S. has been aided by a growing social liberalization during the last 40 years; but in many countries those conditions do not prevail and the struggle of gays is much more difficult. Their advocacy movements are much smaller, ill-funded and more recent than our own, their governments much more repressive, and fundamentalist religion (Catholic, Protestant, Muslim) far more powerful than here.
Religious militia death squads kill gays in Iraq; gays are arrested and sometimes executed on arguably trumped-up charges of rape or pederasty in Iran; vigilante groups kill gays in Brazil; Nigeria is in the grip of contending Muslim and Christian sects competing to be more anti-gay; gays in Eastern Europe (Russia, Poland, some Baltic states) are barred from public advocacy and beaten up by skinhead hooligans while police watch complacently. And meanwhile His Holiness inveighs against gays from his Vatican throne while both Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran export homophobic religion.
Little of this makes it into most mainstream newspapers, and none of it is reported it on the early evening television newscasts. It lacks the general appeal of the mindless antics of starlets and hotel heiresses. To follow most of this homophobic zealotry, you have to read the gay press, get on international list-servs, read a few blogs, and hunt out gay columnist Doug Ireland's valuable reporting.
The depressing part is that there are few ways we can help in any direct fashion. It is possible to hold demonstrations and vigils outside foreign embassies and legations, but while that may help raise the profile of the issue a bit in this country, it seems doubtful that they would influence foreign governments, religious fanatics, or militia death squads.
There are a few non-government groups that attempt to work on these issues, but it is hard to find out what they are doing or how effective they are. Several years ago Amnesty International adopted a gay-friendly policy, but they can always use more money and staff.
Following the example of the Soros Foundation which provided photocopiers, fax machines, and computers to dissident groups in Eastern Europe, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission under former director Julie Dorf did valuable service in providing similar aid to Russian gays during the final years of the Soviet Union. But under present management it is not clear what they do-besides boycott Israel, a rare democracy in the region and the only haven for "Palestinian" gays, and issue press releases about harassment of cross-dressers in Latin American.
The small gay section of Human Rights Watch is supposed to monitor the condition of gays in many countries and is clearly overtaxed. Yet they criticize and seem to resent any outside attempts (and even some internal efforts) to support gay activism in those countries; seem insufficiently skeptical of charges religious authoritarian governments lodge against gays who are arrested, and seem infected with a kind of relativist multiculturalism that inhibits claims to natural human rights.
The American government could send letters of protest to foreign governments, but other issues obsess the current administration and its State Department. Their strenuous efforts to retain supporters and mollify opponents of the Iraqi war give them little clout to pressure foreign governments on other issues. In any case, it is hard to imagine the current president feeling much pain on behalf of foreign gays or alienating his domestic supporters by making efforts on their behalf.
We have a better chance of getting positive action from a Democratic president, so I hope gay Democratic contributors and supporters begin raising this issue with their candidates. Ask them what steps they will take to counter the repression of fellow gays and lesbians in other countries. Force them to ask their research staffs to look into the matter, get them on record, make them realize that this is a significant issue. The time to raise the issue is now while they are still soliciting gay votes and money, before they go all centrist after the primaries are over.
Several years ago I wrote a piece titled "Toward a Gay Foreign Policy," posted at the Independent Gay Forum. I still advocate the suggestions I made there. But we need to go further and plan what we want a Democratic administration to do and how we can press them to do it.
11 Comments for “Helping Gays Abroad”
posted by MMMM on
Thanks a million for the work that went into this article. I’ll follow the suggestions.
posted by Last Of The Moderate Gays on
Rather than expect yet another U.S. Democratic administration (BTW, a BIG assumption if Hillary is the eventual Democratic nominee) to take the lead on this, the author should instead be asking why the U.N. has done so little? Was it not created to resolve issues like this and Darfur? If it can’t handle these, then why does the U.S. remain a member?
posted by James on
Here’s a thought–maybe, just maybe, in those conservative countries, attempted in-your-face Pride Parades and Rainbow Rallies with men swinging huge plastic penises to the beat of Beyonce isn’t a good tactic. The gay community seems to think that the only way to win rights everywhere is to turn being gay into a perpetually adolescent Mardi Gras.
Here’s an alternative: form long-term partnerships and make them visible. Live your life according to the same basic values as the people around you. Make being gay about being masculine, adult, mature, responsible, and loyal.
I really don’t think that people are afraid of a man loving another man in a lifelong relationship–people are afraid that gays want to overthrow the basic values upon which their society is based, and who can blame them? The gay community has not show itself to be a group of model citizens who want to uphold basic ideals. They want to be queer, exotic, and in-your-face. I think that less of the flamboyance and more of the house in the suburbs would led to gay acceptance.
In other words, don’t let the HRC work on this problem.
posted by Steven on
Words can not express how tired I am of reading “James”‘s inaccurate stereotyping of the gay (now global gay) community as party, sex crazied holligans. Paul Varnell harldy mentioned, let alone advocated “men swinging plastic penises” at Gay Pride parades, and quite opposite emphasized the donation of copier and fax machines to start-up foreign gay rights organizations. Identity and visibility are essential in conservative countries where with no frame of reference for ones behavior, your label is “mentally ill” or “criminal sycophant”.
As a gay American who’s lived in China for some time working, and speaking Chinese, I’ve been fortunate to have had countless conversations with gays struggling to find love, and yet integrate their sexuality with prevailing conservative culture that insists on marriage and having children / continuing the family line above all else. Jame’s assertion here, swimming in self-righteous simplicity, is wrong. According to this theory, if “we” slutty gays weren’t making others think we wanted to “overthrow the basic values upon which their societ(ies)(were) based”, the gay rights agenda would advance that much faster. Why is this inaccurate? In the first place, in many countries: such as China and Iran: basic social values such as privileging a family’s “face” over the reality of a gay son must be transformed for gays to enjoy the freedom and hope for long term loving relationships many in the West enjoy. 90% of the Chinese gays I’ve befriended plan on getting married. You can’t ask them to “be model citizens”, or denigrate them as the US gays you like to paint with such a wide brush. Indeed, for them to have lasting, long term loving relationships DOES requires a social revolution in identity and opinion there.
The second reason why I find James’s reasoning flawed is his lack of attention, concern, or sympathy when it comes to the gay community’s behavior. Are there generally more casual sexual mores in the gay community writ large? You’d better believe it. Should one first examine the role that conservative society’s played in funneling the normal human desires for sex and love through repressive laws and social customs that left gay casual sexual encounters far less socially burdensome, and easier to acquire and maintain then a bathouse hook-up? You’d better believe it! Gays are changing as avenues for genuine committment and social integration open.
James perhaps you and me have just had two very different life experiences. I grew up in a small conservative town, and later moved to a large metropolitan area before coming to China. The type of gay straw-man you put out is not me, not what I know, not representative, and is not beneficial towards our common aim – opportunity and equality for gays around the world. I wouldn’t advocate the “beat of Beyonce” here in China either. I would however hope you realize the “assimilationist – we’re all the same” route is only available in the US, to a degree today, because of a revolution in social mores. One that has not materialized in most other places. And those in your face Western pride parades? An awkward, over-the-top, crooning, and yet still hope giving testament to what marginalization once required and the progress made. How many times have Chinese gays told me admiringly how much freedom gays in the US have. Visibility’s a beacon for hope. And I hope the 21st century will see us gays, around the world, united in fighting for a morality prioritizing our right to form, and maintain, these loving relationships. No matter the strategy.
posted by Brian Miller on
the author should instead be asking why the U.N. has done so little
Uhhhhh. . . it has done so little because, as the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan roughly put it, it’s “an insane asylum, a theatre of the absurd, and a rotting corpse.”
It has zero legitimacy or claims to representing the people of the world. It’s “charter on human rights” is a socialist document that talks about “the right to a job,” “the right to health care” and “the right to housing,” rather than bona fide human rights.
Its “Human Rights Commission” includes such stalwart defenders of human rights as Libya, Syria, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and China. It recently ruled that the only country in the world within which human rights violations have taken place within this year is Israel, and struck public commentary criticizing that course from their official record.
You’re waiting for those guys to stand up for the basic human rights of gay people? Yegods, I’d sooner expect Dick Cheney and Karl Rove to have public nuptuals in the White House Rose Garden.
posted by Brian Miller on
those conservative countries, attempted in-your-face Pride Parades and Rainbow Rallies
Yeah, I hear that Riyadh Pride is a real blast, and that the club scene in Tripoli is to die for.
Do you even have a passport?
posted by Jorge on
As someone who is simply not going to vote Democratic this year, this article’s suggestion is useless to me, but it’s a fair statement: ask the question to the people most likely to give an affirmative answer.
However, that doesn’t give everyone else an excuse to pretend their feet do not merit being held to the fire. I think that’s the problem with focusing on so-called “liberal” politicians and governments. That’s a lot of effort that’s not going to be used at all. Everyone who can speak to any power has that responsibility, not just people can vote Democratic.
posted by Last Of The Moderate Gays on
Brian M., I was asking a rhetorical question. Am very well aware of the facts you presented, and you were on target.
But, I think Brian meant “attempting” and not “attempted.”
posted by Last Of The Moderate Gays on
Sorry — meant to say James meant “attempting” & not “attempted.”
posted by MMMM on
Steve said in his response to James, “Are there generally more casual sexual mores in the gay community writ large? You’d better
believe it.”
Although I agree with the gist of Steven’s response to James, I also think he rears back too quickly. While I grant the assertions that (1) men in general are more casually sexual than women in general, and (2) because some women inhibit the expression of casual mores among straight men, (3) some straight men
undergo slightly more frustration and enjoy fewer partners than some of their gay peers, I must ask you all, including Paul Varnell, “So what?” The assertion is numerical. As for the culture, I see a far different story, and that’s what’s missing from this discussion.
I would suggest that straight promiscuity is FAR MORE casually advertised – and so completely ubiquitous – as to be the FAR MORE
garish surface feature of your culture. If this seems strange to you, it’s because it’s so close you don’t see it.
You can’t shop at Walgreen’s without hearing hetersexuals piped in through Muzak going on and on about their sex lives, but you say gay promiscuity is writ large? Puhleeze. In Strangers in the Night, Frank Sinatra croons about two heterosexuals shamelessly cruising each other for a one night stand, yet today it’s a heterosexual wedding favorite. Donna Summer made millions filling the airwaves with stories of hard working hetersexual hookers whoring proudly, yet she thought nothing about condeming the justifiable pride of gays. And so goes James.
Then there are James’ complaints about the “perpetual adolescent Mardi Gras” that he makes the defining attribute of gay culture. James, you have no idea. The carnivale is phenomenon of Western culture going back to the middle ages and one of the most redeeming events a community can have. If you can’t relax and enjoy one, then go home.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakhtin#Carnival
posted by MMMM on
Just to get back on Paul’s topic, my only caveat about tactics of visibility (like the carnivale) would echo Steven’s point that a culture has to have advanced somewhat already before tactics of visibility can occur at all – and God willing – advance the cause of equality. I would also remind everyone how quickly a society can backslide. I myself worry that “gains” made by visibility alone are illusory if not legally formalized and morally encoded. That’s the main reason I’m impatient. I agree that we need to push our candidates now, I also believe we can help others elsewhere better when our footing here is stabler.