government needs advice on gay issues
Monday, January 26, 2004
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra should hire gay activists to advise the government on gay and lesbian affairs, Pakorn Pimthon - president of Bangkok Gay Festival - said on Friday.
According to a report in The Nation on Saturday January 24, Khun Pakorn said homosexuals were widely misunderstood even though more of them were coming out of the closet.
“No one knows gay problems like gays themselves,” he said.
"The parents of homosexual boys often subject them to embarrassing 'cures', which only serve to humiliate them and make them feel like unnatural perverts" he was also quoted as saying.
He also suggested that Thaksin, who was educated in the United States, should have the same attitude toward gays as leaders in the West, where gays were more accepted - one can only hope that Khun Pakorn was not thinking of US President George Bush (among others) when he made that last comment, though I am sure President Bush does have some gay advisors on his staff!
And perhaps The Nation reporters could do with some gay advisors of their own - a front page story on the same day quite happily used "gay" and "katoey" as interchangeable terms!
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