Nigeria apparently likes our constitutional notion that some people are 3/5ths human. The Nigerian Parliament is debating new laws that will make life impossible for gay people. It is already illegal to let anyone know you are gay in Nigeria. The new law would go further
The bill is primarily concerned with banning same-sex marriage, but its sub-clauses go much further. They will strip lesbian and gay Nigerians of their already limited civil rights. The bill outlaws almost every expression, affirmation and celebration of gay identity and sexuality, and prohibits the provision of sympathetic advice and welfare support to lesbians and gay men.
And violations will be punished with an automatic five year jail sentence.
The draconian measure will outlaw membership of a gay group, attending a gay meeting or protest, advocating gay equality, donating money to a gay organisation, hosting or visiting a gay website, the publication or possession of gay safer sex advice, renting or selling a property to a gay couple, expressions of same-sex love in letters or emails, attending a same-sex marriage or blessing ceremony, screening or watching a gay movie, taking or possessing photos of a gay couple, and publishing, selling or loaning a gay book or video.
Nigerian Anglican Archbishop Akinola is all for the law, while retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu is agast.
To find out the best way you can help, contact Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International or your preferred advocacy organization. Peter Tatchell’s website and 365gay.com are good places to stay informed on the status of local to international gay human rights.
me too. I hope there is a robust protest outside the Embassy in D.C., not to mention outside the VA churches that are alligning themselves with Archibishop Akinola.
(whispering) Is that supposed to be “extirpation”? I can’t find a definition for “extripation.” Is it a legal term? (/whispering)
I’m typogenic! thx for the psstt.
I received an e-mail. This Nigerian with a bunch of money. For me!
If the context of this diary was the insurgency currently brewing in the oil provinces of Nigeria, nobody would have given him a zero, and that involves a lot more lives.
People are killed in Nigeria for being gay quite often. And in Iran (they get hung), Egypt(torture and death) and Jamaica (beaten, stoned). We have an internatinoal human rights crisis on our hands but not enough people care I fear.
Sad but true, milo200, the fate of non_American gay people is pretty much off the radar screen here. A good place to keep tabs on what’s happening and what you can do about it is Peter Tatchell’s website. Click on “international” in the left margin. I’ll put the link up in the main post too. Thanks for the reminder.
I wonder if the recent publicized advances of gay rights here has helped or hurt people in those places?
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I mean, there are two ways I see to protect people in intolerant countries. One is to pester them with protests and emails, which might have the reverse effect of convincing them that gay people are intent on meddling and forcing homosexuality on their country, and the other is to ease up on the pressure to accept gays, which might take some of the heat off gay people over there, even if they aren’t able to live as openly as they might like. It might save their lives.
Now watch some zipper head give a zero for that glib remark.
I’d suggest you read Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail. There’s so much good in it. Here are just a few:
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Please, spare me your idea of protection.
but if we spur people into action that gets them in trouble but we sit here getting an A in our Civil Rights high school course, I think that’s a little different.
of how modern a society is. What do you want, the US to start threatening war with people over how they treat their gays? Our current third-world modernization project isn’t going that well, and arguably it was harmed by the fact that we came in prescribing a bunch of symptoms (lower taxes, more privatized economy, more women in govt, etc) instead of lowering our sights and focusing on basics like security and letting the rest develop at the pace that country could move at.
of how modern a society is. What do you want, the US to start threatening war with people over how they treat their gays? Our current third-world modernization project isn’t going that well, and arguably it was harmed by the fact that we came in prescribing a bunch of symptoms (lower taxes, more privatized economy, more women in govt, etc) instead of lowering our sights and focusing on basics like security and letting the rest develop at the pace that country could move at.
Jamaica beats and stones gay’s
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Seriously??? I’m not doubting you…I know it’s a tough place and all….But me and a lot of my old frat buddies still go down there every couple of years to party and I had no idea. Is this government policy? Is there a trial? And if they are found guilty are they “stoned” in public?
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I’d like to see this first hand for myself. I normally go down there in January / February but I could see myself going down sometime this spring.
I created this post simply to inform BMGers about this ongoing human rights infringement. Like MLK, I believe that human rights denied anywhere is human rights denied everywhere.
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It is interesting, and sad, to me to see just how many BMGers apparently think the rights and lives of foreign gay people aren’t worth quibbling over. Anyone going out of their way to make crass jokes while other people are actively being persecuted confirms that the lynching mentality is still alive and well here in the USA.
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John Howard, human rights abusers like to work in the dark. Amnesty International has proven that when people from other countries draw attention to abusive activities, the abusers are shamed in the international public eye and often, not always, but often stop what they’re doing. You claiming that calling the Nigerian Parliament out on what they’re doing will actually exacerbate the situation is rediculous. Looks to me like you’re looking for an excuse not to help people in need while wanting to appear concerned for their welfare. I’m not saying you have to act on this, but I am saying that you’re not fooling anyone with that false caring.
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jaybooth, no I don’t want to start a war with Nigeria over how they’re treating their gay citizens. Such drastic measures probably aren;t necessary. But the US meddles all the time in the affairs of other countries. Why shouldn;t they meddle in the human rights sphere too? To say ‘let them figure themselves out’ is hopelessly naive. We, the USA, never let anyone figure anything out – we use our economic and military power to ‘persuade’ others to do what we want. Are you aware of the little dust up we created in Iraq? Hello! Your arguement is so lame it was the first thing to make me laugh this morning.
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My request: if you hate and loathe gays, just be honest about it. State that you like what the Nigerians are doing. Do you daydream about it happening here to? Then say so. But be honest. All this prevarication is so juvenile.
And it’s a well-written and informative diary, it’s good to raise consciousness. I might have overreacted a bit to the other poster but I’ve just felt like there’s a bit of self-reinforcing orthodoxy here recently attempting to raise gay rights to the most important cause in the world. It’s important, but a lot of people are still dying as the result of tyranny and hunger these days. I’d put gay rights at about 1,742 on a list of “Things that need drastic change in Nigeria”. Like I said earlier, there’s an active insurgency in the country right now. The comment JH made about overreaching earlier, which was greeted with implicit comparisons to, I dunno, segregationists? On the mark. Let’s set our third-world modernization goals on universal suffrage, gender equality, more transparent governance and free speech for now. After you get those things, gay rights will follow all by itself within a couple-few generations.. Writing letters to the Ambassador? Sure, go for it, but I doubt anyone will even read them. The way to equal rights in all facets of life in the third world is through modernization, individual empowerment and integration with the rest of the world. The US making a big stink about how every single country in the third-world treats its gays and using sticks/carrots to that effect would slow down that modernization by attacking the symptom. I’m off for a while – have a good weekend đŸ™‚
Thanks jaybooth for your considered reply. I will address a few of your points here.
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Thank VoteOnMarriage making this the issue of the hour. If they can’t live and let live, I and others will fight them. Expect to see more, not less, until the anti-equality amendment dies it’s well deserved but long overdue death. Since you want to see the topic go away, I trust you are doing all you can to make the amendment go away.
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Why the need to prioritize? It is all of a piece, equality. Also, you seem to have an expectation that Nigerian society should or will develop the same way American society has, taking the same steps. That’s pretty baseless not to mention paternalistic. Look at South Africa. They have constitutional protection for minorities such as gays. Maybe America should look to South Africa in how to prioritize steps in development? No arguement here that Nigeria has many problems. They can all be discussed simultaneously and solved in concert. At least you can agree that mere discussion is not a zero sum game?
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I think you have little to worry about concerning Prez Bush might waste his precious moments on pushing Nigeria or any other country on human rights. Still, I’m sad to see that you think pushing human rights is a drag on the pace of modernization. I see it as advancing human rights = modernization.
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Prez Bush his dear friend and fellow homobigot, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.
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there are probably a dozen minority groups in Nigeria who are horribly oppressed but you and I have never heard of them because they’re not ideologically connected to an activist group in the US. So as far as who’s prioritizing… I’d say we both are.
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So yeah, we’re not from Nigeria, but from what little I know (friend of a friend is nigerian), gay rights would be the absolutely least productive tack to take first. My friend has huge problems with gay marriage and he’s socially liberal on just about everything else. You can’t import or export a social movement, and the proper tack to take with the third world is to promote fundamentals when we can and then let the actual social change happen inside of their society. If we give them some good advice and then include a bunch of things that push people too far, they might tune us out. If anyone is against modernization in that country (like most of the gov’t, currently occupied embezzling oil money), they’ll be able to say “Hey, look, the modernizers love gays!” and get tons of traction that way.
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We need to play 3-dimensional chess with these countries, and I just don’t think our gov’t should waste effort pushing things that will never happen in the short term. Why should a Nigerian politician create civil rights for gay people? Most of them are extremely corrupt and just want to hold on to their jobs so they get a piece of the oil money, popular gestures against gay people help them with that. Let’s recognize the situation for what it is and try to change the underlying factors, like the fact that it’s a corrupt gov’t run by a bunch of crooks, on the verge of civil war with no respect for the rule of law by anybody.
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“attempting to raise gay rights to the most important cause in the world.”
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Exactly . . . I care for these gay guys too. But a lot of people are trying to act like this should be the most important issue in the world. It’s not even close.
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Besides everyone gets stooned in Jamaica : )
…but to piggyback on your comments, Laurel, why don’t we ask Jewish Holocaust survivors how “easing up on pressure” and ignoring genocide worked for them?
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Or how about the people of Rawanda and Darfur? I am sure the people being slaughtered in Darfur are all wishing we would just STFU already…
What they are doing in Nigeria tragically misses the point, it targets victims while ignoring the causes that create victims. What I daydream about is a worldwide affirmation that men and women should require each other to reproduce, and that genetic engineering of human beings is wrong and should be stopped.
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I think an egg and sperm law would have an immediate effect of restoring sanity, people around the world wouldn’t be so frightened of encroaching gay marriage and worrying about how gay people are destroying their society, because they’d see that we understand there is a line that should not be crossed.
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I agree that we should protest inhumane treatment of gay people everywhere. I think it is done out of desperation as a response and counter-measure to what they perceive as american technological and social imperialism, and that perception is reinforced by pressure campaigns of gay rights groups, especially when these groups talk about how genetic engineering cannot be stopped and people should have a right to use it.
Sending emails to the embassy is a waste of time. Got a real idea that will impact the situation?
include contacting Human Rights Watch to see what they advise. I don’t pretend to have all the answers. If sending and email or letter seems like a waste of time to you, what do you propose as a more effective approach?
I say write a letter. Then take the letter and wrap it around a rock.
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Then throw the letter wrapped rock at the guy throwing rocks at the gay guy.
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They will get the point . . . .