Althouse: Most gay-friendly country in the world?

June 4, 2013

Most gay-friendly country in the world?

Spain.

71 comments:

Rusty said...: The gays in Spain stay mostly on the train?; 6/4/13, 5:52 PM
Methadras said...: The intertwined connection between homosexual socio-politics and leftism has a very long and sordid history. The fact that Spain is the most homosexual friendly country in the world is like saying Disneyland is the happiest place on earth. Both are nothing more than brand monikers for ticket sales.; 6/4/13, 6:01 PM
edutcher said...: Last I heard, Espana was sinking by the bow economically.

If they want it, they can have it.; 6/4/13, 6:06 PM
Sorun said...: I think Pride Parades do wonders for gay acceptance worldwide.; 6/4/13, 6:13 PM
dcm said...: edutcher-
I'm sure there is a correlation between being "gay friendly" and economic quagmire. Just look at Uganda.; 6/4/13, 6:16 PM
Methadras said...: Sorun said...

I think Pride Parades do wonders for gay acceptance worldwide.

ROFL, the rodeo clowns of homosexuality.; 6/4/13, 6:16 PM
ndspinelli said...: Tapas are sooo gay.; 6/4/13, 6:24 PM
DEEBEE said...: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXiDWy-Ud3U; 6/4/13, 6:24 PM
campy said...: Tapas are sooo gay.

Tap ass?; 6/4/13, 6:28 PM
mccullough said...: Run with the bulls; 6/4/13, 6:30 PM
Amartel said...: I question the criteria.
"Gay friendly" = giving loud political (left wing) gays whatever they ask for?
Oh, okay. Have fun with your friendly friends in conformist socialist Yurp paradise.

BTW, I don't think Europe is quite as "gay friendly" as everyone automatically assumes. (See, e.g., French rioting and mobilizing regarding the gay marriage laws.) It's not just the Islamic fundamentalists.; 6/4/13, 6:38 PM
Nomennovum said...: What do you expect from a country that allows a guy named Francisco rule for 36 years?; 6/4/13, 6:58 PM
Michael Haz said...: Why are there never articles about the most straight friendly countries??; 6/4/13, 7:06 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: I wonder if some of the reason Spain is so friendly towards gays is because there, the conservatives and the Catholic Church backed Franco.

Nothing like years and years of brutal oppression to strip away moral authority.; 6/4/13, 7:12 PM
Nomennovum said...: Did you ever wonder why the Spaniards pronounce their soft c's like th's? Wonder no longer.; 6/4/13, 7:15 PM
AllenS said...: Are the sheep safe over there?; 6/4/13, 7:17 PM
Methadras said...: AllenS said...

Are the sheep safe over there?

I think that's Scotland or you might be talking about the Basques. :D; 6/4/13, 7:22 PM
chickelit said...: Auch die Deutschen lieben die Schwule.; 6/4/13, 7:26 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: Michael Haz: Why are there never articles about the most straight friendly countries??

You should be counting your blessings, not joking about it.; 6/4/13, 7:42 PM
Brian Brown said...: OT: Looks like Brewers hero Ryan Braun is going down in flames.

Pity.; 6/4/13, 7:43 PM
Titus said...: I have been to Spain, yea it's pretty gay.

Argentina and Brazil seemed the gayest to me.; 6/4/13, 7:50 PM
Gahrie said...: The country that invented machismo?

I call bullshit.; 6/4/13, 7:54 PM
dcm said...: Gahrie-
Ask Titus. Machismo is a front.; 6/4/13, 8:00 PM
hombre said...: "Homophobia?" So disapproval of the homosexual lifestyle and its consequences, which are well documented by the CDC, is an "abnormal fear" of homosexuals according to Atlantic?

What utter drivel! Do journalists even own dictionaries?; 6/4/13, 8:00 PM
Methadras said...: hombre said...

What utter drivel! Do journalists even own dictionaries?

Why would a journalist need a dictionary when whatever they utter is gospel?; 6/4/13, 8:06 PM
Kchiker said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/4/13, 8:10 PM
Kchiker said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/4/13, 8:11 PM
Kchiker said...: "Why are there never articles about the most straight friendly countries??"

If you believe that gay-unfriendly equates to straight-friendly as some commenters would seem to...then the most straight-friendly parts of the world are obvious. They'd include large parts of the Middle East and Africa.; 6/4/13, 8:12 PM
Nomennovum said...: Tapas are sooo gay.

Tapas are not gay. They help a man drink for hours while sitting at the bar but still get some decent food in his belly.

The problem is tapas have become feminized. Women have discovered them and seem to think they fit in their weight-control regimen. Now we have tapas that barely meet the definition, like fried Brussels sprouts.; 6/4/13, 8:13 PM
hombre said...: "Why would a journalist need a dictionary when whatever they utter is gospel?"

Sometimes I just forget.; 6/4/13, 8:29 PM
ricpic said...: Franco kept Espana out of WW II. Lot of gratitude for his crafty neutrality (and don't think he wasn't pressured hard by Adolph and Benito to get in) from many Spanish madres and padres, but of course they don't count, those dirty fascists.; 6/4/13, 8:29 PM
ricpic said...: Women adore homos and hate straight beta males but at the moment of truth who's your daddy? Si se puede. Fegalahs not so much.; 6/4/13, 8:35 PM
Revenant said...: Why are there never articles about the most straight friendly countries??

Pick up an atlas. Flip to a random page. The country you landed on is 100% friendly to heterosexuals.

There. Happy?; 6/4/13, 8:37 PM
Revenant said...: So disapproval of the homosexual lifestyle and its consequences, which are well documented by the CDC

You accidentally left out a link to where, at cdc.gov, this extensive documentation can be found.

Please, share. :); 6/4/13, 8:40 PM
Renee said...: Nice, but it doesn't help their economy.; 6/4/13, 8:45 PM
Kchiker said...: "Nice, but it doesn't help their economy."

Actually it probably does much more than you'd realize. Tourism is pretty important there....; 6/4/13, 8:50 PM
Renee said...: ecause of its low fertility rate in recent decades, Spain is ageing rapidly. Having had 5.6 people of working age for every retired person in 1970, Spain has just 3.6 today. By 2050, the ratio will have deteriorated to 1.5, according to the OECD. Public expenditure on pensions is expected to rise from around 9% of GDP today to 15.5% by 2050.; 6/4/13, 8:51 PM
Renee said...: http://m.cdc.gov/en/HealthSafetyTopics/DiseasesConditions/STDs/syphilisMSM_FS

Why should MSM be concerned about syphilis?

Over the past several years, increases in syphilis among MSM have been reported in various cities and areas, including Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Southern California, Miami, and New York City. In the recent outbreaks, high rates of HIV co-infection were documented, ranging from 20 percent to 70 percent. While the health problems caused by syphilis in adults are serious in their own right, it is now known that the genital sores caused by syphilis in adults also make it easier to transmit and acquire HIV infection sexually.; 6/4/13, 8:54 PM
Lydia said...: All the Pedro Almodóvar movies probably didn't hurt.; 6/4/13, 8:55 PM
ricpic said...: I was scoffing down tapas in a bar in Barcelona and a guy got friendly, insistantly friendly, and he kept talking about this place filled with beautiful friendly senoritas and I was drunk and then drunker and then in a taxi and then with a senorita and then back on the street with a wallet lighter by a thousand American and that's my very unHemingwayesque memory of Spain.; 6/4/13, 9:02 PM
Renee said...: There is no such thing as 'gay diseases'. The diseases that affect the gay community, are diseases of opportunity based on behavior. I disapprove of unhealthy behavior, I do not disapprove of people.; 6/4/13, 9:02 PM
ricpic said...: ...I do not disapprove of people.

How about when they've earned it?...to quote John Houseman.; 6/4/13, 9:17 PM
Palladian said...: ROFL, the rodeo clowns of homosexuality.

Now that's funny! Bravo! My new nickname for pride-fags.

Pick up an atlas. Flip to a random page. The country you landed on is 100% friendly to heterosexuals.

Revenant, have I told you lately how much I love you?

I disapprove of unhealthy behavior

That rules out pretty much anything fun.; 6/4/13, 10:09 PM
n.n said...: Renee:

Actually, there are "oriented" diseases, which are not merely opportunistic. The male homosexual population is at increased risk to contract STDs because of their promiscuous behavior, but also because of their chosen entry point. The rectum was simply not designed for the form of exploitation some human beings have chosen to practice.

because of its low fertility rate in recent decades

Since homosexual behavior is exhibited by a minority of human beings, this is primarily a heterosexual "disease". The principles of evolution are inviolable. They cannot be considered selectively for matters of wealth, welfare, or convenience. It did not help when they normalized human sacrifice, and thereby devalued human life, for the same purpose.

The normalization of evolutionary dysfunction will succeed where an alien invasion ultimately failed. The Europeans are so smart, and, apparently, are in the majority incapable of self-moderating, responsible behavior.; 6/4/13, 10:17 PM
Palladian said...: n.n, the thesaurus queen, strikes again! Torpor ensues.; 6/4/13, 10:19 PM
madAsHell said...: die Schwule

Nein, es ist maskulin.

der Schwule

yeah....go figure!; 6/4/13, 10:20 PM
Palladian said...: Any country with a high percentage of uncut dick is ok by me.; 6/4/13, 10:24 PM
chickelit said...: @MadasHell: Du hast Recht gehabt Du Spitzbube! Ich meinte "die Schwulen."; 6/4/13, 10:26 PM
madAsHell said...: Ich meinte "die Schwulen."

Thanks, another word in my vocabulary. I only knew it was masculine because I looked it up.

How many people here study German??; 6/4/13, 10:34 PM
chickelit said...: How many people here study German??

Relatively few...it has that stigma you know. I was surprised once here to learn how many people know some Italian.; 6/4/13, 10:37 PM
Anonymous said...: Assigning genders to objects is silly. I much prefer English.; 6/4/13, 10:38 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/4/13, 10:41 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: Wow, I actually agree with Inga about something. Four years of high school German and der, die, das, kiss my ass.; 6/4/13, 10:56 PM
chickelit said...: Assigning genders to objects is silly. I much prefer English.

The Dutch gender reassigned their three grammatical genders. Der and die (masc. and fem.) nouns and articles become one: de. Neuter remains: het = das.; 6/4/13, 10:58 PM
chickelit said...: I think the idea was to equalize the sexes and to stigmatize the "its".; 6/4/13, 11:00 PM
David said...: Bull!; 6/4/13, 11:54 PM
Renee said...: @ n.n.

What you described was behavior.

As I told a loved one, anal sex with multiple partners is not healthy. I can not teach my children that this behavior is OK but I will explain it in a neutral manner.

Women have anuses too.; 6/5/13, 6:27 AM
David said...: So what about this Nadal guy?

He can break hearts on both sides of the aisle.; 6/5/13, 6:27 AM
Balfegor said...: Russia and China are the clear outliers: predominantly atheist, yet with just a few (16 percent and 21 percent of people, respectively) who say homosexuality should be accepted by society -- a sign that anti-gay prejudice there is cultural and historical, not ideological.

I'm pretty sure there's a strong ideological component there.; 6/5/13, 7:03 AM
Lezer said...: This was a survey of 39 of the world's 200 or so countries. So it was pretty poor journalism of the Atlantic to conclude that Spain is "the country that's most accepting of homosexuality". Good for the Spanish though that they top that list.; 6/5/13, 7:08 AM
Unknown said...: What's so good about it?; 6/5/13, 7:48 AM
AllenS said...: Evidently, the "running of the bulls" has had an adverse effect on the men of that country.; 6/5/13, 8:03 AM
Lezer said...: "Assigning genders to objects is silly. I much prefer English."

Natural languages are not the result of planned and deliberate effort, so there is no silliness in grammar. More importantly, terms like masculine and feminine, used to indicate grammatical gender, are hardly more than a naming convention without biological relevance. Die Fahne never meant to imply that a flag is (a) female. The Hebrew word for 'fathers', avot, has a feminine plural suffix -ot. The word for 'women', nashim, has a masculine ending -im.
Languages with simple declension systems, like English, do have the advantage that they are easier to learn as a second language.; 6/5/13, 8:10 AM
Illuninati said...: As far as I'm concerned, any country which does not outlaw sodomy is gay friendly. Once they have achieved that, the gays should just live their lives quietly like everyone else. Other people have the right to like or dislike their lifestyle just as they have the right to like or dislike straights.; 6/5/13, 8:22 AM
Scott M said...: The gays in Spain stay mostly on the train?

The pipe is lain mostly with the gays in Spain.

FIFY.; 6/5/13, 8:28 AM
sonicfrog said...: I thought the most gay-friendly country in the world was Disneyland?; 6/5/13, 11:12 AM
Nomennovum said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/5/13, 2:32 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/5/13, 2:59 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: It's about time there was some good news out of Nigeria.; 6/5/13, 3:40 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: Pick up an atlas. Flip to a random page. The country you landed on is 100% friendly to heterosexuals.

Damn, I got Vatican City. What are the chances?; 6/5/13, 3:42 PM
Indigo Red said...: That helps explain why Spain has the lowest fertility rate in Europe at only 1.1 child per couple.; 6/5/13, 7:05 PM