Miguel Alvaro claims he endured a horrifying ordeal when he was targeted and physically assaulted by Turkish police solely based on his appearance, being perceived as gay and suspected of planning to participate in the Pride march in Istanbul
They've been in NATO since back when the US would lock you up for being gay too. Hell, Texas only removed the law banning same sex relations in 2003. And it took a supreme Court ruling to do it. Sodomy was still a crime in the US army until 2014.
Together with Greece, they were the first country to join after the 12 founding members - years before Germany and decades before Spain and the other half of the current NATO members.
With big military and startegic position they are one of the most important countries for the alliance. Therefore they also have the cabability to start a circus like they did with Finland and especially with Sweden.
Unironically this is probably the case - feminine ones are excluded from military service for example (show proof to the doctor to escape service), whereas others are allowed.
I wouldn't be so hasty. The middle east, including Turkey, are some of the most culturally rich places to visit. In general, the Arab people are extremely hospitable. There has been civilization in the area for thousands of years and many fascinating antiquities remain. Turkey in particular has a longstanding secular tradition that was started a hundred years ago by Kemal Ataturk, only recently eroded by the religious conservatives. I wouldn't let a few thuggish people put you off.
I'd agree, but given that those few thuggish people in the Middle East seem to be setting policy that includes beating people for looking gay all the way up to beheadings, it might be beast to avoid it for now.
Is that web reliable? Can people go 20 days without sleeping? Simple Google search says record is 11 days. And he worries about detainees? Not gays? And yeah, the web description is "unbiased, well researched, independent news." You know they are bad when they do those kind of claims. Just criticizing the website, not the story. Commenting because that's how I'm doing my part. ><
*He was detained for participating in an “eventful” Pride march.
*On the bus, some "Chechens" said he “looked like a gay."
According to him.
Berlin-based ArtıGerçek (the original, Turkish-language version of GercekNews) is a sensational-yet-prominent left-liberal Turkish-language newsletter. "GercekNews" is much more fresh and novice, uses an outdated UI of artigercek.com
While gay sex was never illegal there there's a couple of "public indecency" type laws which allow police to harass folks. Regarding public sentiment: If tomorrow you had a referendum whether civil unions should be introduced it would not be unlikely to pass, pro-marriage and pro-union are almost 50% with 30% undecided. And don't think that protesters for other stuff are treated more kindly.
Comparing the situation in Turkey to that in other Muslim countries, as done in the icky portions of the post replies, (except say Albania), is dishonest and misleading as fuck: Most problems arise not really because Turkey is a homophobic shithole, much less a particularly homophobic one, but because it's a shithole. Go ahead, try to outlaw alcohol in Turkey and you'll see how much arguing with the Quran is accepted there.
Bonus song (enable subtitles). Oh and someone has to explain to Turkish machos that bullying bottoms is totally gay.
Why would anyone straight have a problem with anyone being gay? Are they all in the closet and think that what they feel is what everyone feels, and somehow the fault of gay people?
Well, to be “fair,” a significant portion of homophobes believe an invisible man in the sky said it was bad, according to some guys who knew some guys who knew a guy that died several hundred years before they wrote that into their “things the invisible man in the sky said” collection of fan fiction.
I didn't get it until I started getting serious about weight loss (doing well btw :)) you develop a raw anger at people eating food that you can't enjoy. Of course I don't say anything. It's like that expression
If you are a liberal vegetarian you do not eat meat
If you are a conservative vegetarian no one gets to eat meat except for you.
You know, for one reason or another I won't bother you with I'm still in the WhatsApp group of my childhood friends.
They're a bunch of dicks, and tbh were I to meet them today I'd avoid them like the plague, but a couple of people in there are actual friends, so I stick around.
Anyway, the humour in the chat is that of many WhatsApp groups, jokes about women, sex and so on.
Boomers humour, so to speak, even though we're all X-Gen.
Sadly, 80% are jokes about gays, which can get fairly nasty at times.
A couple of weeks ago I actually said "hey, how come you guys always joke about gays and trans? Like, all the time? You know who does that? Closeted homosexuals".
Then I linked a few articles of random gay-bashing Republicans who were caught fiddling kids and were forced to admitting being gay.
I think a mix of religion and being brought up with old-school morality. I'm a conservative who has no problems with homosexuals, in fact HIV/AIDS is one of the causes I really get behind because the history of it fascinates me (currently reading And The Band Played On, it's great).
Whenever I see homophobia or erroneous beliefs about them I try and correct them when I can.
Years ago a friend's rock band was touring Europe and they landed a show at a club in Turkey About a month before the show the owner of the bar sent an email to the booking agent that said "We don't allow fags in our bar, Show canceled" The band had a video with a drag queen in it.
This is a fair decision for Turkey. You can't expect the owner to allow fags, it would bring in the entire country to compete with him in sucking some gay dick, and they just don't have enough seating for that.
*He was detained for participating in an "eventful" Pride march.
*On the bus, Chechens said he "looked like a gay".
According to him.
EDIT: I did not claim that Turkish people are not homophobic. I did not minimize the injustice suffered by the Portuguese man. Why are you downvoting this?
Turkey doesn't lock people up for being gay. Homosexuality was never criminalised. Public displays of affection are another issue but just being gay, no.
It stated that he was arrested just for "looking" gay. I had to read way too far into the article to clarify that the police suspicions were actually correct.
Turkey is luckily not in the EU.
Recently they tried to use their veto power in NATO to block Sweden's entry unless they're allowed to begin the process of joining the EU but that got shut down real quick.