Tailoring one's approach

Harold Wilson once said that the Labour Party was a moral crusade or it was nothing.  After achievements in combatting sexism and racism in the official sphere (with still a long way to go amongst society), liberals - across the political spectrum - started angling around for a new cause, a new moral crusade about which one could be righteously indignant.  I say this because though there is a massive publicity frenzy at the moment regarding the LGBT movement, once it is seen as being more or less sorted, liberals will scrabble around for another oppressed minority about whom they can fulminate.  I don't remember there being a massive campaign in the 1990s regarding gay rights, bar the courageous and occasionally controversial efforts of Peter Tatchell and Stonewall.  Even Chris Smith as Culture Secretary in 1997 was rather low-key.
Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, however, yesterday signed into law a bill that criminalises homosexuality throughout his country, similar to how it was in pre-1967 Britain.  He didn't do it quietly at a midnight session but was determined to do it in the full glare of the international media.  It was interesting though that his decision to publicise his actions was done to thumb the nose at those he would term colonialist or neo-colonialists.  As in Russia, LGBT rights activists may have overreached themselves prompting a backlash.  It's all very well being determined to cut a swathe in a largely secular country where a large part of the population wants to be seen as right-on but the defeats in non-Western countries cut to the core of whether universal human rights exist, let alone universal gay rights.  Are rights seen as critical in the West applicable everywhere or is that the arrogance of the West?
Now, it must be said that those of a homosexual or other sexual orientation should be free to live normal lives and not have to endure harassment or casual prejudice.  That is my personal position.  I have to state it as there is a difference between being critical of a minority and being critical of the tactics of the advocacy for such a minority.  Just as criticism of any intemperate actions made by the Israeli government and those who defend such actions is not a criticism of the right of Israel to exist, free from fear (though wilfully interpreted as such by some organisations to engender silence), the same applies ot criticism of gay advocacy as not being a denial that those in the LGBT community deserve to live ordinary lives (again this can be wilfully misinterpreted).  It is a deep irony that those who support actively a group that has throughout history being characterised as sub-human should deny this minority the very human trait of fallibility.  If advocacy can be improved, that can only be for the better.
In fact, maybe the worst thing for the LGBT community is to have been adopted by the mainstream.  On legalisation in 1967 (despite vigorous denunciation of the government from Viscount Montgomery), Joe Orton was concerned as, for him, being gay would no longer be special, the thrill of the illicit gone.  But it had to happen.  In one way though he was right.  It is now a lazy, cynical shorthand for those who are not of an LGBT persuasion to proclaim themselves as supporters as proof of their progressive and modern outlook.  Such laziness results in harrying countries such as Uganda, Russia or Poland, rather than trying to understand them to bring about the change that is needed.  In countries of a more conservative hue than the West, a more softly-softly approach combined with education rather than megaphone diplomacy could reap rewards in the long-term.  The 24/7 news agenda makes us impatient but changing the mindset of a population does not happen overnight and breeds resentment if pushed too hard.
Certainly, those who have launched official verbal broadsides at gay people in general are rambling in their mindsets.  Museveni, in power for over 30 years, has also railed against miniskirts as pornography and vowed to ban them.  The instigator or Russia's anti-gay laws attacked Channel 4's Jon Snow for colluding in the massacre of Orthodox Christian Serbians at the hands of Kosovan 'terrorists'.  For the Russian, he is always partying like its 1999.
But Channel 4 is victim of its own excess.  Chronicling the vicious persecution of the punk rock group Pussy Riot and their fans by Cossack militiamen, Channel 4 decided to interview Anna Matronic, of the pop group Scissor Sisters and noted LGBT activist, in a videolink to New York about this naked crushing of LGBT rights in Russia, when Pussy Riot were protesting about human rights in general.  Channel 4's editorial team thought: Sochi Olympics, LGBT boycott, Pussy Riot/something something human rights - must be an LGBT story as if there are no other pressing human rights outrages happening in Russia.  Again, Channel 4 was bombastically angry, reeling off the sections of Uganda's anti-gay bill, including a part that forced people to report those they suspected of homosexuality, despite this part being dropped from the final bill.  If one cannot be dispassionate, at least be correct, for getting it wrong  (as Stephen Fry did when he effectively said that Poland built the WWII extermination camps) undermines your case in such parts of the world.  Again, it comes down to the effectiveness of advocacy.  Being sloppy in one's tactics just doesn't cut it.
The supposed boycott of Russian produce during the Sochi Olympics will have to continue indefinitely, presumably, otherwise it would be an inconsequential flash in the pan.  But as a gay friend said, there were far worse human rights abuses in China during the 2008 Olympics (culminating in the ludicrous Potemkin-style 'protest parks' where one had to apply for a permit from the police to protest and when one did you were arrested; and if you protested without a permit, they roughed you up before arresting you) and the LGBT activists didn't kick up a stink there.  That's why she had no qualms about watching the Sochi Olympics in her downtime.  This blinkered aspect of activists to others deprived of their rights hampers the case for LGBT advocates.  If Russia hadn't enacted an anti-gay law, would they have protested?  Would Channel 4 have called up Anna Matronic?  It makes them seem self-absorbed.  If they talked of the denial of a vast panoply of human rights, amongst which one was the rights of the LGBT community which was their speciality, they would have far more traction to their valuable argument.
Over-reaching is a natural impulse.  Adding asexuals to their campaign banner (LGBTA is in increasing use) is another irony for those who are asexuals were accused of being closet homosexuals anyway!  Each country (or in the USA, each area) must be approached in a way that appreciates the facts on the ground and can challenge them in a way that local people will understand - where their eyes are opened to the fact that to be in the LGBT community is essentially not chosen but a mixture of genetic and environmental factors.  They only form between 3%-5% of the population so what is there about which one can be frightened?  This way, the anti-gay rabble rousers are circumvented and a ground swell in the population at large provides the momentum for change.  In some countries that will take a long-time, but like being gay, nothing can be done about that.