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‘Right-wing governments’ aren’t the reason Egypt and Turkey rejected gay travelers. But many Westerners insist that every foreign vice is caused by colonialism.
Talk about a big gay scandal. This week brought news of a gay Virgin cruise ship called Scarlet Lady, which, by my count, is at least a triple entendre. In recent days, the ship was barred from docking in both Turkey and Egypt. To make it even more of a gay hate crime, the Scarlet Lady was carrying not just 2,000 gay Americans but also Patti LuPone.
The mainstream media, and what remains of the gay press, swiftly framed this as a pattern-example of anti-LGBT discrimination. Indeed, CNN ran the story under the headline: “Twice-Rejected American Cruise Puts Spotlight on Rollback of LGBTQ Rights, Passengers Say.”
The story CNN and others ran with was drawn in part from the testimony of one Kyle Olsen, the owner of an LGBT travel company who claimed that the ban reflected a “broader global trend.” He added that “We’re seeing a rise in right-wing governments and increasingly conservative political movements, and in many places LGBTQI+ rights are being rolled back as a result.” According to Olsen, “The decisions by Turkey and Egypt don’t exist in isolation.”
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Free Press
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Douglas Murray is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor of City Journal.