US to support gay rights abroad

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Apparently, the US is going to make countries' records on gay rights important in terms of aid asylum requests. While I support the idea, it strikes me as hypocritical, as the US still has the Defense of Marriage Act on the books, which disallows the federal government from recognizing same sex marriages.

It's a step in the right direction.

Hmm . . . looks like they're following the UK's lead.

The US is working on gay rights domestically and abroad; I see no hypocrisy there. That they haven't been constantly successful domestically doesn't mean that they couldn't achieve great things abroad. Besides, they can sidestep the whole issue of hypocrisy by only demanding that other countries reach the standard that the US has now instead of demanding that they reach complete equality before the US.

This is a very positive effort from the US and I'm very glad they're doing this.

I think it's a good thing for us to do, but I wish we weren't trying to do it during a recession.

edited 8th Dec '11 3:16:58 AM by NoirGrimoir

I heard this from a friend but didn't read the article he mentioned, so take this with a grain of salt, but I though the plan was to spend something like a couple million dollars on the campaign? That's so little you won't even notice it in the budget.

Responding to that properly would derail the thread, so I'll just write a couple of words here and leave it at that.

When there is a problem, people often suggest that everything else should be abandoned until that problem is solved. That kind of approach is unhelpful, if you ask me. It is smart to prioritise, but focusing exclusively on a single issue isn't ever a good thing for an organisation that isn't about just that one thing (so a gay rights organisation focusing on gay rights exclusively is good, but a country focusing entirely on their budget isn't.)

I'd like to go in depth with this, but this isn't the topic, so I'll just say that I prefer it when a government focuses on the entire range of its goals and responsibilities simultaneously with the resources it has, placing emphasis on the issues that deserve priority. This is one of the small projects you can do on the side that will help the world move forward a step at a time at little expense to anyone.

edited 8th Dec '11 3:57:17 AM by BestOf

True, that's not much. Though I wish we'd stop all foreign everything for a couple years and just put a decent dent in the debt before we start doing this stuff.

...I take it that somebody on the Democratic side of things was sneaky, since this almost certainly didn't get Republican support...

To me, this looks like something Obama and Clinton are doing more or less on their own. They're entirely entitled to carry out whatever projects they like in their capacity in their offices; it's only when they get other government bodies involved that they need to ask for anyone's permission. (So this is only rhetoric at this point, but will become more concrete if Congress approves.)

They're putting on the table yet another project that it would be very hard to reject without losing face except on the basis that anything goes as long as it's against Obama, but I don't think that particular constituency of the Republican party is going to commit themselves to their petty campaign for very long, as it's preventing progress, even of their own goals, and if Obama gets re-elected there isn't a whole lot that they can do without simply freezing things altogether.

Perry decried it as an act of "war against the people of faith in this country".

I dunno, I'm an atheist, but if I was a believer and someone said that trying to prevent countries like Uganda from oppressing and murdering their homosexuals was an act of war against me, I'd be pretty fucking offended.

Perry is a moron: The US is going to fight criminalization of homosexuality abroad, as a human rights issue. Guess what? It is a human rights issue.

Unless you're one of those puritan fascists who truly want homosexuals to be persecuted by the government's jack-booted thugs, encouraging foreign governments not to oppress the gays is unassailable from a moral perspective.

@first post: It may seem a bit hypocritical, but then again Britain made similar calls and doesn't have marriage in the books either (although it does have a broader protection of rights and a nationwide authorization of Civil Unions). What Clinton just said is a step in the right direction, because marriage is not necessarily the first thing to fix when it comes to LGBT rights; one has to ensure the lives and rights of LGBT citizens be protected first.

@Perry's comment: It's amazing that we still have idiots like him running government functions here in America.

edited 8th Dec '11 8:42:27 AM by EarlOfSandvich

Earl:

The United Kingdom Government hopes to have Gay Marriage by 2015

And when do we hope to have gay marriage nationwide in the US? Way AFTER anyone, especially the UK, I'm sure.

To truly step in the right direction here, we Americans NEED to take us down some Puritan fascists... Like Perry!

There are no Fascists in mainstream American politics, and to claim otherwise is to grossly misrepresent the country and/or Fascism itself.

If the word is overused to mean any generally oppressive type of government or policy, it loses much of its meaning and the history of the previous century will have to be re-written with the updated definitions all over again.

It would make more sense to use the word in its original meaning, which is a specific type of authoritarianism.

Any politician that promotes Capitalism, Libertarianism, Conservatism, or Democracy, cannot be a Fascist in the most common meaning of the word.

Why, thank you.

edited 8th Dec '11 1:00:16 PM by BestOf

@Best Of: though I generally dislike the use of that emot, I feel compelled to give you an .

Thank you for that, Best. I'm continually surprised by the number of people living in my country who think we're authoritarian to the degree of fascism. Or otherwise grossly mistake the political system of the country they live in.

Anyways, I'm supposing that supporting gay rights abroad is a good thing. We do like to present ourselves as for freedom for all, so this is just walking the talk we like to talk. *shrug* Hopefully it'll do some good.

Hear's hoping some of that goodwill comes back over here I suppose.

Labeling socially conservative parties and politicians as fascist isn't unique to the US, but is widely abused in the whole world. The Serbian Radical Party, for example, even though a classic case of a conservative libertarian ideology, is regularly labeled as fascist (sometimes even neo-Nazi), both home and abroad. Which is generally hypocritical, considering that many progressives can be even more authoritarian than conservatives. I don't agree with conservativism, but this really irks me.

Anyway, to the topic: As much as I support the ideals behind this initiative, I think that the US is in no place to meddle in other countries' internal affairs.

edited 8th Dec '11 1:44:27 PM by MilosStefanovic

People rarely seem to know what the word fascist really means.

Because ensuring the human right to live in all places around the world and not fear for your life because of your sexual orientation isn't a thing that concerns everyone? No, we can't change the laws there, but as a country we can influence things to make them at least a little bit fairer. It's like that old poem about not speaking up because you're not part of the group being targeted, and then there's no one left to speak for you.

The abuse of the word is not helping anyone, so whenever I see or hear it misused, I take the time to point it out.

It's the same with Communism: we already had to re-define it when countries that didn't adhere to the definition of the word labeled themselves as such (or started out as Communist and immediately transformed into something else;) namely, China and the USSR. If people start calling universal healthcare or free education "Communism," we're gonna have to re-define the word again. It's much simpler if the "alternate" (though if you ask me, "false" is a more accurate word here) definition doesn't become so widespread that it sticks.

If you want a word for universal healthcare and free education and the like, try "equal opportunity" or "welfare state" or something like that. If you call it Communism so often that people start to really associate it with these newer "definitions," people won't know what anyone's talking about when they learn about the USSR and China in history.

edited 8th Dec '11 1:51:51 PM by BestOf

Perfectly said. Congratulations.

Anyway, the people who live in the countries where homosexuality is a crime (which are usually poor and backwards) actually need foreign aid the most. I fear that this will break on the backs of innocent civilians.

I refuse to subsidize the criminalization of consensual sexual conduct. If a country's citizens (like in Uganda) vote to oppress sexual deviants, I'm perfectly cool with them fucking starving. There are way too many fundies in the world for us to promote them breeding.

They live under dictatorial or quasi-democratic regimes. It's not like they get the chance to vote about that.