Quote:
Originally Posted by Smack dat
Bare in mind that homosexuality is still illegal in 70 countries and flying the flag can cause serious security risks to personnel
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this. I love the Pride flag and think it would be awesome if every city and state flew it on their home turf, but we are talking about embassies that are in other people's countries, some of which are still structurally and culturally very homophobic
I live in Jamaica, it is dangerous to be an openly gay male or trans female here. violence is always a risk. this is pretty common as a phase in post-colonial 'periphery' nations
JA doesn't explicitly outlaw homosexuality but butt sex and 'obscene' (whatever that means, ahem) sexual acts among males are illegal and support and protection for gay men and trans folk is pretty weak across the board. hell, a prominent gay rights lawyer from here actually moved to Canada a few years back because he was getting so many death threats
I have several gay male friends here and only one of them is out of the closet, and he doesn't speak to his parents anymore cuz they disowned him when he came out :/
it's gotten a lot better over the years, when I first started visiting here about 15 years ago it was not uncommon to hear folks talk openly and publicly about harming 'batty men'. the younger (30's and under) generation is vastly different, they tend not to give a fuck. the one out dude I know here is my upstairs neighbor and all the security and maintenance peeps who work here don't care, he's just Karl to them
right now flying the Pride flag on an embassy here would not be productive. right now JA gay men aren't wanting to be 'celebrated' (though they should be), right now under current conditions they just don't want to be killed or discriminated against. the Pride flag here does nothing but cause controversy that resolves nothing and creates a discussion platform for bigots to spew their hate
that was demonstrated after the Orlando massacre, when the US embassy did raise the rainbow in solidarity with the victims of that shooting. and wow did every homophobic mofo come crawling out of the woodwork talking shit about the imposition of babylon. it was not helpful to the cause of gay rights
at the time even the attorney general here called the flag 'disrespectful' to JA culture, that's what this country is dealing with right now
it's not right, but it's the reality. gay rights movements aren't a monolithic bloc and it's actually disrespectful to gay people to impose NA norms in a non-NA context
that said both me and Karl have beautiful translucent rainbow stickers on our windows that glow in the sunshine