I almost fell out of my chair: Pride Comes to Vietnam.
If the dates in the article are right, this should be going on right now. I would love to see the leadership of other countries send praises Vietnam for doing the right thing. I wonder if Obama will say anything.
Hmm Vietnam might be the first dictatorship to legalize homosexual marriage.
If Vietnam legalizes SSM before the United States… I might just cry.
Damn it. That’s the second time they beat us at something!!
I doubt that Vietnam will legalize same-sex marriage. This is a political game.
Care to elaborate? What kind of game? Who is the opponent? What do you think Vietnam is trying to “win”?
The Vietnamese government takes a pretty dim view of public acknowledgement of gays. This gay-themed commercial for Chewy Junior was banned and the actors & production company were fined. In light of that, I just think it’s amazing that something like a gay pride celebration would even be tolerated.
This was interesting:
So certain kinds of social freedoms can thrive where religious dogma is kept in check.
My money is still on Cuba.
It would be a clever move on the part of the Vietnam government - hard for other countries to claim you are repressive and infringing on human rights when you can point at them and say, “Well, does your country allow legal Gay marriages like we do?” It would at least take the “holier than thou” shine off their critics, even if it is just a ploy and they continue to be as repressive in every other respect.
Travelling through Vietnam, you don’t feel much repression. No doubt it may be different if you live there, but it’s largely a free-wheeling capitalist environment with a nominally communist government locked in place. And they’re already attracting a lot of foreign investment, much of it enticed away from Thailand these days. There’s a huge amount of port development taking place in the South at the moment too, aimed at attracting even more.
Have there been any rumblings that such a thing may happen in Cuba?
There was some talk about civil unions earlier this year, but just in general the Cuban government has been on a very pro-LGBT path for the last decade or so, with Fidel even apologizing for the oppression of gays earlier in the regime. A lot of it is that Raul Castro’s daughter is a big LGBT-rights advocate and seems to have been very influential as of late. If things continue down that path (and there isn’t general upheaval) I wouldn’t be too surprised if Cuba gets marriage equality before it gets democracy.
Nah.
I’d say ancient Rome under Caligula qualifies as a dictatorship.
Good point; it would also benefit their tourism industry if they allow foriengers to get married there. It still seems highly unlikely though.