Homosexuality in China

Recently, the article written by New Yorker journalist Margaret Talbot on the Supreme Court case in California challenging Proposition 8 has gotten considerable press. For those who have not read it, it is an interesting read and features an odd couple of litigators: Theodore Olson and David Boies, lawyers who argued on opposite sides during the historic Bush v. Gore case which gave the 2000 election to George W. Bush, have now found themselves fighting for the same cause.

Interestingly, this has coincided with news on homosexuality in China. According to the BBC, China's first gay pageant was shut down by police just hours before it began. From the BBC.com:

Organisers said police informed them it could not go ahead because they had not applied "according to the procedures".
Homosexuality was illegal in China until 1997, and officials described it as a mental illness until 2001.
The event's organiser, Ben Zhang, said he had been hoping the event would mark another step towards greater awareness of gay people in China.

I have very mixed feelings about this. One could feasibly (and quite accurately) state that in terms of recognizing the rights of homosexuals, China is quite far behind other countries. No form of civil unions are recognized and many homosexuals are fearful of coming out of the closet. At the same time, there is a clear absence of a right-wing, social-conservative political block in China as there exists in America. This was made clear to me last year when I was studying at Tsinghua university. For a class, I was watching Chinese language talk shows and discussing the issues with a teacher. One day, the issue of homosexuality came up during an episode of Tiger Talk (Yi Hu Yi Xi Tan) from Phoenix TV. Among the audience members, there was overwhelming sympathy and support for homosexuals. Even with the opposing side of the debate, there was no Bible waving or accusations of moral deviation. This is not to say that being homosexual in China is easier than in the US, but simply to raise the point that the nature of the debate is different. There is yet to be a Chinese Sarah Palin, but there are still many opponents of homosexuality here.

For someone who wants to look into this topic further, a good source is my friend and author of the blog Jonathan in China: An American in Shanghai, who has written numerous posts on this homosexuality in China (see, for example, this one).