Monday, August 3, 2009
When it comes to marriage equality, guess what country is more liberal than the USA? No, not Spain — that’s a slam-dunk. Maybe the Netherlands then? Too easy. Perhaps Canada, just across the U.S. border?
Try, Albania. Yep, tiny Albania, population 4 million.
Homosexuality remained illegal in Albania as recently as 1995. But now the country has stepped boldly into the 21st century and is about to introduce legislation that many of the supposedly more liberal governments in Europe have yet to embrace — legalizing gay marriage.
For more than 40 years, from November 1944 to April 1985, Enver Hoxha was the Communist leader of Albania and led a nation that was officially atheist but after Hoxha’s death in 1985, the country started to reengage with the outside world and reform its internal structures.
Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha deemed a conservative leader in a deeply conservative country and someone who is a great advocate of “family values”, has nevertheless taken a strong line on the need for Albania to adopt laws that aim to fight the discrimination that many members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community still encounter.
Perhaps, Prime Minister Sali Berisha can knock some sense into President Obama who continues to do a side hustle with regard to the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” as well as the Defense of Marriage Act?
From the Left 
This action perfectly positions tiny Albania as a serious contender for membership in the European Union.
If a small, southern, conservative European nation with a high percentage of Catholics and Muslims can get its shit together, vis a vis, gay marriage, why can’t American states like California, Texas and Utah?
Albania? I’m impressed. This becoming more than a little embarrassing for the U.S., when a small, former communist nation outshines America when it comes to how LGBT people are treated by its government. Wake up Washington, the planet is passing us by.
Well Wisconsin is a little bigger than Albania, and we have never been a totally Commie Country…. but progress continues after a set back three years ago….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_of_same-sex_unions_in_Wisconsin
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This is great news!
Do you ever get the impression, that as the world moves forward and evolves, the good, ole’ US of A is content to move backward into the dark ages?
Anyway, props to Albania. I don’t even know where they are on a map so I will look it up.
I hear you AZ Leatherneck. This country has lost its footings. The very foundation that this country was built on was personal rights and equality for all. Homophobic rednecks are a dying breed, just not fast enough. Especially when they continue to get watered and fertilized from our leaders.
Awesome! Albanian men are hot!
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Sounds like a government that wants to join Europe on an equal footing.
Meanwhile, here in the Third World,
our State football coach calls opponents “f*ggots.” Several times. On the air. Nobody seems to care. Even though he’s a public employee.
Your tax dollars at work, even in hard times here in the “Aloha State.’ Home of which President?
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It’s high time we invade Albania.
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