Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. A day to remember his leadership and involvement in the civil rights movement. The work he set out to do still has much further to go. Coming to Little Rock has made me more aware than ever of the journey still in front of us. However, we must celebrate where we have come. Today is a day to do that.
As I am finishing up my latest work in Cape Town, South Africa, I am focused on what our twenty-first century civil rights movement is. In Cape Town, I was working with LGBT refugees and focusing on ways that they can more easily be granted asylum from the countries where they are persecuted. The twenty-first century civil rights movement does not know country borders. Civil Rights embodies the collective marginalized. We must all be working together because WE ARE ALL INVOLVED! #WAAI
With everything that is going on in the world regarding the lack of rights toward the LGBT community, I cannot help to focus on that today. In Uganda, they have recently passed the Anti-homosexual Law. This month, NIgerian president signed a ban on on same-sex relationships. And in Russia, the world watches to what will happen to the LGBT community as the Olympics come to Sochi.
My work and research recently brought me to something I read stated by Lord Hope during the HJ (Iran) case, a groundbreaking case for asylum in England. He said:
Behavior which reveals one’s sexual orientation, whether one is gay or straight, varies from individual to individual. It occupies a wide spectrum, from people who are naturally reticent and have no particular desire to establish a sexual relationship with anybody to those who wish, for various reasons, to proclaim in public their sexual identity.
No one person proclaims their sexuality in the same way. Today, as we remember the civil rights movement in the past, and how it looks today, let’s acknowledge we all proclaim, not just sexuality, but who we are differently; No matter what gender, race, geographical background, sexual orientation, gender identification, or any other factor that may force us to be marginalized.
I felt that this article on Buzzfeed regarding Transgender Rights and this phenomenal video about Putin and gay rights in Russia were necessary. Enjoy and feel free to leave links to other recommendations as we look at civil rights today and any day.