China won't ask, but doesn't want anyone to tell either
Tuesday, July 28, 2009 at 12:18AM SHANGHAI JOURNAL: "Gay Festival in China Pushes Official Boundaries," by Andrew Jacobs, New York Times, 15 June 2009.
For the life of me, I wouldn't know why a single-party, capitalist state like China would care about homosexuals one way or the other. This recent gay festival in Shanghai, though, had plenty of government restrictions placed on it, like zero media coverage or zero advertising. An attempt to stage a play about the murder of Matthew Shepherd was torpedoed when a gov type showed up at rehearsals and started writing down names.
Still, we're only a dozen years since homosexuality was decriminalized, so I guess it remains a matter of small steps, carefully taken.
However:
Most big cities have gay bars, and social networking sites ease the isolation of those living in China's rural hinterland. Antigay violence is virtually unheard of.
So it seems another example of Chinese social life seriously outpacing political change--to no surprise.
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