Global Gaze: Give and Take
I’m going to go ahead and warn all new and returning Global Gaze readers right off the bat that this is not going to be a particularly happy-go-lucky post. Sometimes, however, blogging about international gay issues means fulfilling Anton Chekov’s prescription that “at the door of every happy person there should be a man with a hammer whose knock would serve as a constant reminder of the existence of unfortunate people.” Mostly, I just wanted to say that I know writing this column can sometimes make me seem like the constant bearer of bad news, but I promise to deliver some more lighthearted, perhaps even uplifting, posts in the weeks to come.
But for now, I’ve been following the international press, and the news is not always good. In fact, while it’s preferable to think of the gay rights movement as steady march towards equality, as events like the passage of Prop. 8 last year in California taught us, in real life there are often setbacks and stumbles on the road to tolerance and equal rights. So, sometimes, even in the midst of celebrating a victory, the global queer community needs to be even more vigilant about taking stock and preventing backsliding in the quest for progress.
Take, for example, the case of Uruguay’s recent passing of a law that legalizes same-sex adoptions. I wrote about the move a few weeks ago with great optimism and gladly pointed out that Uruguay was the first Latin American country to ever take such a step. It turns out that my excitement may have been premature, however. Almost immediately after the news was announced, the international LGBT community began celebrating this victory for adoption equality, but legal scholars have pointed out that such celebrations may be unwarranted.
This is because the bill that was heralded as so inclusive may not actually allow for adoptions by LGBT couples after all. As Raul O. Garces writes for the Associated Press:
With the law awaiting President Tabare Vazquez’s signature, gay rights groups have been celebrating the prospect that Uruguay could become the first country in Latin America to give gay and lesbian couples the opportunity to adopt.
But nowhere in the law does it specifically say that homosexual couples have a right to adopt. And in some places, it suggests otherwise — for example by specifying how the child should take a mother and father’s surnames.
Lawyers, judges and even the law’s own authors now have doubts about how the law will be applied.
The problem seems to boil down to this: as written, the law doesn’t specifically mention same-sex couples. However, it does allow those in civil unions, which are legal in Uruguay, to adopt without obstruction, which the bill’s writer assures everyone means that it allows for equality. What, critics ask, about queer individuals not legally committed? A bigger problem, however, is one that is found on the global level as well: The holes in the language and areas of ambiguity make it easy for judges and lawmakers to develop varied and contradictory interpretations of the law. Only time will tell if the advances made in Uruguay will truly represent progress or if the ambiguous wording will overcome the spirit of the law.
Similarly, it is always exciting to hear word that more LGBT politicians are being elected and appointed to prominent positions around the world. In addition to greater visibility, having sexual minorities filling these positions can oftentimes result in issues related to the international queer community being raised more frequently and seriously in policy discussions. So I was understandably pleased to hear that that following Sunday’s elections in Germany, Guido Westerwelle, the openly gay leader of the Free Democrat Party, may be in line to be appointed foreign minister of the country if his party winds up forming a coalition government with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats.
Almost immediately after this news was reported, however, the media began to speculate as to whether an openly gay man would be taken seriously by other world leaders and whether or not intolerant heads of state would even meet with him. These were the same sorts of issues raised in the U.S. when Hillary Clinton assumed the role of Secretary of State in regards to her gender. While these concerns are in some ways valid, their validity only reveals the level of homophobia on the world stage, which is, you know, a lot, and that’s depressing. The fact that a German politician had to issue an apology less than 24 hours after the election was completed for insulting said gay politician is even more depressing. Most disheartening of all, however, may be that, while LGBT people are slowly becoming more represented in places of power, there still exist people like the new United Nations General Assembly President, Libyan Ali Abdussalam Treki, who called homosexuality “unnacceptable” during his first press conference, and that they continue to hold some of the most influential positions in the world.
Finally, it was my pleasure to report earlier this year that there seemed to be far more success stories related to Pride festivities around the world in 2009 than defeats and that it was inspiring to see the global queer community come together to help put on similar festivities in other countries throughout the international community. However, there has been one glaring exception to this rosy view of Pride 2009: Serbia. The cancellation of Pride festivities in that country due to threats of violence from far-right wing fascist groups is made even more disappointing by the knowledge that this year was going to be the first time the event took place in Belgrade since 2001, and it represented a true glimmer of hope for progress in that part of the world. The only potentially positive event to come out of this situation is that Serbia’s public prosecutor has formally asked that two of the extremist groups in question be officially outlawed, which hopefully points toward a safer and more peaceful Serbia for all of its citizens in the future.
The point of this post is not to discourage international LGBT activists. On the contrary, hopefully it will renew and reinvigorate our collective efforts and passion for advancing gay rights and equality around the world. It’s important to take a moment every once and a while and reevaluate how far we’ve come and how far we have left to go, and to take a critical look at our successes and failures on the international level.
What do you think, Global Gaze readers? Are these really setbacks at all, or opportunities for future progress? How can we, as an international queer community, keep ourselves from getting frustrated? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section below!
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