For British gay rights campaigners, 2014 already looks like a year to remember. England and Wales will join the small club of nations that allow same-sex couples to marry. Meanwhile, the Sochi winter Olympics have sparked global outrage against Russian homophobia. Surely reasons to celebrate?
Not according to two Yale Law professors. In a Washington Post opinion piece, Ian Ayres and William Eskridge blast US hypocrisy over Russia’s anti-gay legislation. They highlight eight US states that maintain laws against ‘promoting’ homosexuality. Similar cries of Western hypocrisy have surfaced in the Guardian and The Spectator.
Ayres and Eskridge rightly debunk tidy distinctions between ‘the West’ and ‘the rest’. In France last year, hostile right wing groups dispelled any illusions about tolerance when they turned same-sex marriage into the symbol for everything wrong with Europe today...Read Professor Eric Heinze's full blog post on the QML Media Centre.