Hey all,
I read a headline recently about the Queen supporting gay rights - so I clicked on it and read the article, turns out she doesn't really support gay rights at all. Let me outline my case and you tell me what you think...
FYI - This is the link I read that made me want to write a post on it:
http://gma.yahoo.com/queen-elizabeth-fights-discrimination-114804600--abc-news-topstories.html
The ABC article I linked to above says:
The Commonwealth Charter states opposition to "all forms of
discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, color, creed, political
belief or other grounds."
"The queen has to remain politically neutral," Arbiter said. "While we
won't hear her personal views on this, the fact that she is endorsing it
publically in front of television cameras, it really does speak
volumes."
Oh the Queen has to remain politically neutral? Hmmm, and that's the reason she can't reference gay rights more directly? Well in that case why is the gender reference in the charter? If the queen believed in equality of the sexes then that's her personal opinion but she doesn't need to declare it to the world as that is a political opinion...right? Complete nonsense...
Let me tell you the real reason there's no 'sexual orientation' protective wording in the clause...because a lot of the Commonwealth is comprised of homophobic countries who do nothing to protect minorities and, in some instances, violently promote their further marginalisation and persecution. The fact that the Queen, who is the head of the Commonwealth, panders to this view instead of leading the Commonwealth to equality and human RIGHTS for all is COWARDLY. Oh and don't give me the whole 'she's the figurehead so ofcourse she doesn't draft the wording' argument - she's the freaking Queen and if she wanted to change it and take a more proactive approach to her PR and what the Commonwealth stands for she could - she just doesn't want to because hey its only the gays right? who cares about that minority? Well apparently not her by the look of things..She probably knows that if she did explicitly support gays some countries may leave the Commonwealth or fail to recognise her some other way...so she keeps silent on the matter to appease the human right abusers and keep her country member numbers up...classy Liz...
I know many in the press are foaming at the mouth about how "excited" we all should be by this royal approval by silence...but to me its pathetic. Either she stands for something or she stands for nothing. I know the royal family don't do anything political these days because...well...they don't do much at all really apart from try and stay relevant (although I don't mind the younger royals - but I really hope they do better than the current crown wearer.
We really do deserve better than this Queen - she has such an opportunity being the head of the Commonwealth to try and spread a worthwhile message and make meaningful change to the lives of so many gays who are struggling RIGHT NOW in these homophobic countries and she does nothing...our Queen is a coward and is apparently quite content with it - shame on her and shame on us for letting her get away with it.
Is The Queen Spineless? My answer is yes unfortunately - I don't want to sound harsh but I am bitterly disappointed by her actions and feel that she lets down LGBT persons across 1/3 of the globe by saying nothing and not standing explicity for gay rights
GayLadForLife
Also the Guardian done a good critique of the Queen's lack of action too - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/11/queen-gay-rights-commonwealth