On Fri, 8 Apr 2016, Ted Lemon wrote:
There is another side to this, although I don't disagree with either
of you on the China observation.
[snip]
It breaks my heart to hear stories of the horror that gay couples
have gone through because of discrimination of this sort and other
sorts. I am not okay with being party to that happening in the
future.
I agree that engagement is important, but let us bear in mind the
risks we are asking our friends and colleagues to bear when we have
this discussion.
Right, well I have heard those stories too, but I have not heard them
in relation to visitors in Singapore. If you look at the statements
on the US State Department website, there is, as has been pointed out,
a section regarding LGBT laws and practices. The absense of warnings
related to medical care does of course neither mean that it isn't
potentially a problem nor that we should not investigate this further.
I know that this is going to sound like an excuse and it certainly
isn't meant to be, we did miss this topic and we should have brought
it to the community for review. However, the fact that this issue
has not been "flagged" by sister organizations such as ICANN (4
meetings in Singapore) and APRICOT (2 meetings) at least suggests
that it isn't a frequently encountered problem.
Ole