As the late great Paul Harvey used to say, "It's not one world." A lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) - or any combination of those - person living in the United States, for example, should be shouting with joy every day that they live in America and not in many, many other places in the world, where oppression of LGBTQ people is real and not imaginary. In some of those places, said oppression can actually be fatal.
For instance, in Zimbabwe, where the South African nation's powerful vice president has announced that the government will disallow a scholarship intended for LGBTQ students as part of a crackdown.
The state university scholarship for people between the ages of 18 and 35 is sponsored by GALZ, a membership organization for LGBTQ+ people in Zimbabwe. The association started offering it in 2018 without incident. But a recent online advertisement inviting applications attracted a harsh response from Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, a self-proclaimed devout Catholic and former army commander.
In a strongly worded statement Thursday night, Chiwenga claimed the scholarship was “a direct challenge” to the government’s authority.
“Our schools and institutions of higher learning will not entertain applicants, let alone enroll persons associated with such alien, anti-life, un-African and un-Christian values which are being promoted and cultivated by, as well as practiced in decadent societies with whom we share no moral or cultural affinities,” he said.
In case you didn't catch that, he's talking about (among other places) the United States and most of Europe - in other words, the civilized world.
Zimbabwe is anything but a civilized, modern nation. Since the seizure of power by former President Mugabe, that southern African nation has seen explosive inflation, while the government has nationalized (seized) major industries and openly repressed all manner of dissent.
Meanwhile, American LGBTQ+ people complain about their representation in computer games and indulge in other hand-wringing complaints of "oppression."
See Related: If the LGBT Activists Want More Representation in Video Games Then I Have a Demand of My Own
The Left and the LGBT Community Are Using the Legal System to Weaponize Self-Victimization
As stated above, American LGBTQ people should be eternally grateful they live in the US and not Zimbabwe:
Like many African countries, Zimbabwe has laws criminalizing homosexual activity. Sex between men carries a potential sentence of up to a year in prison, and the country’s constitution bans same-sex marriages.
Chiwenga said Zimbabwe’s anti-gay laws make “any (scholarship) offers predicated on the same aberrations both unlawful and criminal, and a grave and gross affront on our national values and ethos as a Christian nation.”
And:
Zimbabwe has a history of discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer people. Former President Robert Mugabe, who ruled the southern African nation for 37 years, once described them as “worse than dogs and pigs” and unworthy of legal rights.
Let's not even get started on the Muslim world, where LGBTQ people are executed by stoning or just being tossed off a roof.
The simple fact is that LGBTQ+ people have it pretty good in the United States. They are, if anything, over-represented in entertainment. The United States allows same-sex marriage (even former President Donald Trump has expressed acceptance of same-sex marriage). There is no discrimination against LGBTQ+ people under the law, be it in employment, criminal justice, or any other area of government. They have the same legal rights as heterosexual citizens, period.
Many of the claims of "oppression" arise from rationally concerned parents complaining about drag queens in schools, from people rightly objecting to chemical castration and genital mutilation of children, and other such ridiculous claims of discrimination. If the LGBTQ+ people who advocate for those things - who seem to be a minority in the larger LGBTQ+ community - would just mind their own damn business and not attempt to rub these things in the faces of the general public, few people would even care what they got up to - so long as they leave other people and their children alone.
American LGBTQ+ people have no idea how good they have it. As with so many such issues, though, they have gone from asking for tolerance to insisting on acceptance to demanding approval and celebration, which is a bridge too far for many Americans. But their repeated claims of "oppression" are, to put it bluntly, poppycock. And if they don't believe that, they are welcome to take a trip to Zimbabwe - or Iran.
