All I will say to that is my calling your statement absurd has now gone from overly polite to ridiculously polite. I could go into your incorrect understanding of Kenyan history, but it would be a large waste of my time. Your statements might sound smart to someone who knows nothing about pre-1800s Islam but they’re actually pretty irrelevant. Of course your statements are especially irrelevant for a country that is only 11% Muslim and where Islam has never been the majority religion within its current territorial bounds.

P.S. I didn’t say “all of it” that’d be absurd, but a pretty large chunk of past and ongoing interference is from British and these days added to the Anglican church are the fundamentalist US missionaries.

Really? And not at all made illegal in 1897 by the British East African Protectorate.

Not quite sure why I have to repeat myself but here we go again. Raquel, there is nothing quite as absurd (to put it overly politely) as claming that homosexual legality is a “western culture” thing. As said before, it is legal to be gay in 25 of the 55 recognised African independent nations and 133 of the world’s 202 recognised independent nations accounting for far more than half the world’s population.

That is without even going into the origin of gay persecution in most ex-British Colonies, which as you may be able to guess, was started by the Anglican missionaries.

@o_andras indeed, I can imagine a tonne of things to worry about, busses, air-conditioning, large room, toilets, oh and “will my members be arrested for attending” is a pretty big one.

@o_andras, is it really your intent to call 25 of the 55 African countries “oh so very hip”. And I just checked the bids, oh hmm, due to the exclusion of Europe there were only 2 bids, but one of them was Manila Philippines. A poor country which I don’t think anyone is going to claim as “hip”1, nor is it in the west2 it is not great for LGBT people but where it is also, and not sure why we have to stress this point. Legal To Be Gay.

And to repeat, regardless of the selection and bidding process, the OSMF lied about the situation for LGBT people.

1: does gay legality make one hip? 2: there are more countries and square kilometres of land where being gay is legal outside of the “west”, than there even are western countries.

P.S. one might want to check the news coming out of Kenya this month because I’m not even sure this SOTM will go ahead regardless of LGBT people’s complaints. Something far bigger is going down.

Whether it is pleasant to be gay and/or trans in those countries, is another matter but at least it isn’t illegal.

@Friendly_Ghost, lying about the legal situation in Kenya, is part of the tacit support. Tacit support does not require intent, it is actions, intended or unintended, that show support for a policy. As stated many times in many places there are 25 countries in Africa where it is legal to be gay and trans, which they could have picked, for instance the entire western coast south of and including Equatorial Guinea.

@H@mlet while it may be safe for certain tourists, that admissible eccentricity card is something that is not universally granted and who it is granted to is rooted in colonialism. And I will not visit any country where my ability to not be arrested is due to an admissible eccentricity card.