2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Why I DON'T support Bernie for President [View all]Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)Brunei intensifies their anti gay laws to include death by stoning? That's a big part of why I oppose the TPP.
To be more accurate, Brunei is one of the nations that originated the TPP in 2005. The Sultan wants the economic benefits of globalization. At the same time, the Sultan has passed ultra conservative religious based laws for the public which he says will serve to insulate their culture from this globalization he wants to profit from. So these laws oppress and punish a variety of people, women and gay persons of course facing the worst of it, but no one getting a good deal on this save for the Sultan and his family, exempt from the laws and exclusively entitled to the profits as absolute monarchs.
Very hard to support an agreement when one party to that agreement says that in order to live with it they have to execute their gay people by stoning. Can reasonable people, as you say, disagree on this? I am not so sure about that.