How Gay Marriage is Dealth with in Dubai

Well that's no surprise.

 

Well, it is their country.
Why would one try this in that country?
Knowing this maybe a death sentence

Rocket River

 

I don't condone what that government does at all.

But I'll still go there for vacation...

It's a strange mix of openness and very rigid views there, though. I was there in March with my girlfriend and we kind of made out in the bar of the Grand Hyatt, I don't think it was too much at all (nothing that would have even raised an eyebrow in the USA or in Germany), but the barkeeper came to us and asked us to stop as this kind of behavior was forbidden in Dubai. I was like...wtf. It was a strange experience .

 

How many countries outside of a handful in Europe and possibly Canada actually support gay marriage?

 

How many support slavery?

 

marriage: "The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife."

slavery: " The state of one bound in servitude as the property of a slaveholder or household."

Equating the two are preposterous.

 

He's not equating them so much as saying that the US, Europe, etc. don't share many of the views that still exist in the world, slavery being an example. Saying that gay marriage doesn't have support outside of a few European nations and Canada doesn't mean much because a large segment of nations around the world don't support rights for women, don't support freedom of the press, don't support freedom of religion, etc. I doubt anyone would claim that those rights shouldn't belong to Americans because Zimbabwe or China don't allow those rights. Aligning one's argument on civil rights with the views of so many nations around the world that don't support the basic civil rights that Americans believe belong to every human being is dumb.

 

Actually. . .serious question .
how many countries DO support slavery now?

Rocket River

 

I don't think anybody out and out legaly supports slavery. From what I understand there are a few African countries where it occurs openly despite legal bans. I think the cocoa bean farming for Chocolate is very heavily tied with slavery.

There are also scores and scores of slavery-like "Indentured servant or Bonded labor" arrangements in places like India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan whereby people enter into debts that are impossible to pay off and are shackled in leg irons and forced to work against the impossible debt.

Of course there are also the "Sex Slaves" in places like The Ukraine and Thailand who are slaves forced to prostitution.

 

There are many forms of servitude, and not just the one that we as Americans tend to associate with based on our history.

 

Like said, there are different forms of slavery.

In Saudi for example, slavery still exists in a certain form. And then there are those (many) who are barely paid anything (from india, bangladesh, sri lanka etc...) and sometimes aren't even granted the right to go home. (necessary papers etc.)

 

Or in India, people work their whole lives in servitude to someone else, and their children will work for the masters children and on and on...

 

Interesting talk of current slavery to be sure but my point was more simple than that. There was a time when slavery was commonly accepted among the world community and it took a brave stance against popular opinion in our country to end it here. What's popular isn't always right and, in the case of civil rights we now regard to be inalienable, it almost never has been. Equality for gays and lesbians is the same all over again. It was once popuplar to believe that the rights of free men didn't apply to blacks and it was once popular to believe the rights of men didn't belong to women. It's no surprise the same resistance exists with regard to the rights of homosexuals. It would actually be surprising if it didn't. Every civil rights struggle is like this before it isn't. When I was a small boy and first learned about slavery and learned that it was commonly accepted even by otherwise good people (seemingly anyway - I didn't know them) I asked myself what we were doing now that would later be regarded as slavery is today. Discrimination against - and resistance to equal rights for - gays and lesbians is a perfect example. One day it will end and the people who once resisted will be as ashamed of that as Robert Byrd is now of his participation with the KKK. That day can't come soon enough.

 

I am not equating them . . . I am asking a question
Where is Slavery support in this modern era?

Rocket River

 

I loathe to use the moral relativism angle in debates.

What if I supported cannibalism if/only if the victims weren't murdered or obviously ill? They aren't harming anyone living, and if they get tested for diseases every month or so, it's the cannibals' choice...

Gay marriage is a very very testy testy debate.... These guys can be pioneers in their own country. I'm not sure what puts me in the position to debate the rights in Dubai culture...

 

When something fundamentally goes against most major religions in the world, I have a hard time thinking that people are going to finally "see the light" and accept gay marriage anytime soon....

 

I agree
The only way I see it making its way into some countries
without the threat of force.

Rocket River

 

I respect the differences in cultures. I strongly disagree with Dubai's take on gay human beings (yes, they are human beings... some people clearly have a tendency to neglect that fact), but I respect their right to have a different culture. What they are proposing to do to these people, however, giving them hormone treatments against their will, and with the threat of death as the probable alternative, is no different from the obscene acts of the Nazis of Adolf Hitler. It's no different at all. If I were President, I would have already recalled our ambassador for consultations, and if the Dubai government didn't like that, I would point a finger across the Gulf and ask them if they would prefer being a province of the mullahs"s Iran. Seriously. This is obscene. It's completely inhuman. We are supposed to be a beacon for freedom... why aren't we standing up and telling them they're mad?


Keep D&D Civil.