On Wed, 25 May 2016, Ted Hardie wrote:
question. That question is either: are we willing to presume that certain classes of participants must either skip a meeting or break the law to attend?
Yes, because we're already doing that and have been for a long time. The LGBT issue is one important issue, but there are a lot more of also important issues.
It's my firm opinion (as I have posted in multiple email) that if we disqualify Singapore on the basis of its on-the-books laws, then we must also disqualify USA and for a very long time (at least 5+ years before we might re-evaluate performance) and not have a meeting there in near time.
In a lot of aspects USA is an oppressive nation with a long string of human-rights violations and arbitrary incarceration (more examples than the ones Ted Lemon mentioned), with huge amount of gun violence and 1/4 of the worlds prison population. As mentioned before, stand-your-ground laws means I can get shot and the shooter go free because the person claimed he was scared of me.
Again, there are no perfect places to have our meetings. Some people can't attend some meetings because of $REASON. Skipping Singapore because of LGBT issues means we're as a consequence discqualifying a huge part of the world (including some parts of USA that still have opressive laws on its books (see earlier postings)). Singapore has the chance to be inclusive for people that have other problems than LGBT issues, that might not be able to attend meetings in USA because of $REASONS.
-- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@xxxxxxxxx