The dividing line between the West and the rest of the world could be seen clearly last Thursday, when it ran more or less precisely between US President Barack Obama and Senegalese President Macky Sall. The two leaders stood together and smiled for the press in the Senegalese capital of Dakar. Then someone asked a question about gay marriage.
Obama praised his country's Supreme Court for its historic ruling the previous day recognizing same-sex marriages at the federal level. The president declared this "a victory for American democracy" and called on the West African nation to allow homosexuals equal rights as well.
Sall promptly disagreed with Obama. Not only are homosexuals denied the right to marry in Senegal, but sex between men is in fact a crime there, as it is in around 30 African countries. "Senegal is a tolerant nation, yet it is not yet ready to legalize homosexuality," Sall said.
The two presidents' meeting was also a clash of cultures, one made all the more intense as Europe and the US find themselves undergoing rapid societal change. One number illustrates just how quickly this change is occurring: As of this August, 585 million people in the world will live in regions where true gay marriage exists, not just legally recognized same-sex partnerships. That's roughly twice as many as in August 2012. And just 12 years before that, at the turn of the millennium, gay marriage didn't exist anywhere in the world. » | Mathieu von Rohr | Translated from the German by Ella Ornstein | Tuesday, July 02, 2013
