The past few days have seen a number of alarming anti-LGBT international news items. Among them:
- in Australia, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has refused to set up a meeting with members of the advocacy group GetUp! (famous most recently for incredibly compelling marriage equality advertisement that’s gone absolutely viral), despite the fact that the group won an “intimate dinner” with Ms. Gillard in a June charity auction, intending to send same-sex couples to dine with the anti-equality prime minister and share their stories. ABC News Australia later reported that Gillard’s office agreed to hold the dinner, but not until after her party’s national conference early next month. h/t: Andy
- in Russia, the St. Petersburg administrative region is considering legislation that would ban so-called “gay propaganda,” essentially prohibiting anyone from writing, publishing, or speaking in public about LGBT identity. Two other regions, Arkhangelsk and Ryazan, have already taken similar steps. h/t: Rex
- in Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe has pledged to “punish severely” any Zimbabwean known to be an LGBT person. He also called homosexuality “Satanic” and lashed out at Western governments seeking to make future aid contingent upon the recipient nation upholding all human rights, including gay rights.
I’ve been sort of keeping up with the Marriage situation in Australia. It’s wierd because almost everyone in Oz is behind gay marriage EXCEPT Prime Minister Julia Gillard (and fundies of course – every counry’s got ‘em).
She has offered no concrete explaination for her objection, she’s not even objecting on religious grounds. She just thinks it’s wrong. Curious.
The PM is an solid Athiest, and anti gay marriage rights. Sad to say it Peter, but I know a LOT of Australians, and almost ALL of them are anti gay marriage, and few are super gay friendly otherwise…though they do tell me they “love the parade” in Sydney, etc., that is about the extent of it. Most of them are rural, from Queensland, Western Australia, and the countryside of New South Wales. Urban folk are more tolerant, but Australia is a lot more than Sydney and Melbourne.
And Australia has more fundys per capita than any other western nation that (preserve us…sigh) this one.
From all I have read/heard/seen, the US will have gay marriage before most of Australia will.
Actually, now I come to think of it, I have heard tales of worrying right-wingedness from the antipodes. There was the boat of desperate immigrants left to rot by the Oz government a few years back, their despicable treatment of the native Aborigines, and on a lighter note, me and all my contemporaries used to watch the top Oz soap ‘Neighbours’ throughout the 80′s & 90′ (it was massive here in blighty).
It took till LAST YEAR, 2010, for them to have their first regular gay character.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2010/08/18/first-regular-gay-character-for-neighbours/
On second thoughts, Australia sounds a scary place, and not just because of all the deadly snakes and spiders that live there!