I never thought of worldwide homophobia being classed as a British export, but I suppose there is some truth in that…
I doubt Britain will make much impact on the rest of the world until we see gay marriage legalised- but then perhaps efforts should be made to help progress gay rights across the whole world. It sickens me that people are being severely punished world-wide just for loving someone of the same gender
Lord Browne’s experience is, well, his own and I would suggest says a lot about himself, his employer, and the fact he spent a large share of his career in a different generation to a lot of us.
There are bad employers and good ones out there. Fight or flight, but do something about it if you aren’t happy.
You could try sorting out the EU for a start!
At the moment if I wanted to work and live in Italy or Greece with my CP partner then I’d lose all my rights wheras married couples wouldn’t. Apart from homophobia there’s actually the practicality of working in the EU when your civil status isn’t recognised.
I agree more has to be done with the extreme countries but we can’t even sort out free movement within the EU for gay couples and is it the UK to blame for them or the religion that was exported to them. Why can’t the churches do something? They remain totally homophobic in this country despite laws in force and the govt bends over backwards for them.
I slightly agree with Essexboy, I’m in a CP so I’d have to confront my employer with that. I couldn’t hide him in the closet, surely gay people in business aren’t all still single and I’m not sure what the employer is meant to do unless more employees make a stand and come out.
I wonder if it might have something to do with the relationship of the Anglican Church with the Monarchy… being Canadian, I am certainly a product of the British exportation of philosophies, but compare to Jamaica and the African nations, not to mention the US… there have to be other factors at work… Any ideas as to what they might be?
Britain exported buggery laws to all its colonies and these are still on the law book hundreds of years later in Singapore, Malaysia and India to name just a few, making gay sex technically illegal in all these places to varying degrees of enforcement.
I am a young gay guy who works in Asia and I can definitely relate to what Lord Browne says. In the more conservative culture here these kind of matters are not spoken about and your colleagues will expect you to fit in with male stereotypes which is not exactly comfortable for gay people. Coming out would undoubtedly ruin the office harmony which is extremely important in the working environment in many Asian companies.
There is definitely still a lot of progress that needs to be made in business and industry in terms of LGBT acceptance – but it is fair to say that I can not a massive improvement from when I first entered the workplace 20 years or so ago.
Yeah well, oil companies like BP are intolerant of a lot of things. Accountability, taxes, safety standards, transparency… although not conflicts of interest.
Honestly, I think gay people should make a conscious effort NOT to aspire to Lord Browne’s position. Hasn’t he done our reputation enough damage by being one of the men responsible for the BP oil catastrophe on the Mexican gulf and the man who will go down in history for recommending the trebling of university tuition fees.
Whether Browne’s sexuality has anything to do with him being a pathological liar, I don’t know. But I suspect it has more to do with his chosen profession.
It is a crime today that LGBT people are stopped from getting and keeping good jobs just because of their sexuality. What if they were a different color like black the we would know that they are being discriminated against. Everybody knows that the Christians are behind this oppressive practice of stopping gays from working in jobs they can do or getting them fired for being gay. This is a Human Rights issue that needs more attention world wide, after all gays are human and need to live, eat and sleep like everybody and they have feelings just like everybody else. There needs to be a change now to stop the oppression of LGBT people today and if all of the LGBT people rose up and fought for their rights along with their allies they could win the war over the oppression that these anti-gay Christians are waging today. Hate kills, Love lives.
As a (closeted) gay person pursuing in visual arts and game design i must say that it’s unfortunately true. At least where i come from… homophobia is a huge problem in the arts. You’d think that arts would be one of the most liberal ones career wise…but no. Surprised me too.