Warsaw this weekend, Paris next week, Tel Aviv 15 days ago: LGBT parades are popping up all over the world. Parades in the colors of the rainbow which are organized while the situation of homosexual people in the world remains worrying.
It’s a reality: in this area, nothing is really acquired. On June 8 in Israel, Gay Pride marchers in Tel Aviv were well aware of this. Some indeed explained that openly homophobic ministers currently sit in the government, in particular the Minister of National Security who had organized a demonstration in 2006 in which he compared homosexual people to animals. A concern reinforced by a judicial reform project which could limit the powers of the Supreme Court and call into question certain LGBT advances in the country.
Concern in Israel, but also in the United States, where the month of pride was tarnished by numerous threats targeting the gay community. In Texas, the state has adopted several discriminatory measures against LGBT+ people. Consequence: Gay Pride has been limited to one day. In Florida, the same trend with a battle around the evocation of sexuality at school.
Catastrophic situation in Africa
Dn the majority of African countries, homosexuality is considered “against nature”, and it is often a political weapon to seize power. In Senegal, Ousmane Sonko, the main opponent and entangled in a sex scandal, pleads to criminalize homosexuality even more harshly. In Cameroon, the media regulator is threatening to suspend television channels, especially foreign ones, which broadcast “scenes of homosexuality”. In Uganda, one of the most repressive laws on the subject has just been adopted: homosexuality is punishable in certain cases by the death penalty. And the trend is the same across the continent.
Generally in the world, positive laws for the LGBT community are difficult to pass, negative ones are passed with disconcerting ease. Two examples: in Japan, the legalization of marriage for all is dragging on, the government even going so far as to refuse that homophobic discrimination be prohibited. In Russia, the deputies approved this week in first reading a law prohibiting the change of sex in a surgical way or in the civil status. A text which is in line with the latest laws passed in the field which defend “traditional family values” and define marriage solely as the union of a man and a woman.
We should also point out the words of the Catholic Archbishop of Krakow in Poland, who speaks of “rainbow plague”and the number of homophobic acts in France, which increased by 28% last year.
Conclusion: not only is there still a lot to be done to allow the LGBT+ community to live peacefully in the world, but we can add that nothing is ever won and that everywhere on the planet. Pride marches are there to remind us.