Equal Rights

On May 14 2013, Brazil turned a historic page: the country legalized same-sex marriages. Brazil is consequently placing itself at the forefront of the LBGT rights, with a handful of other countries (namely Canada, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, England, Belgium, Argentina, New Zealand, even Uruguay and a few more). Recently France also have joined the ranks, but the French created much more havoc about the issues than the Brazilians.
Here or in other places in the country there was no demonstrations against the passing of the law. And when you look around, the Brazilians appear to be pretty open, specially in places like Rio and Sao Paolo.  Guinness is saying that Sao Paolo has the world biggest gay parade in the world. And yet, as I am writing this, I learn that Brazil remains a country with a very high level of violences against the LBGT community. 
Tonight we were invited with friends to a party. The same-sex marriage topic came to table.  
And then I fell off my chair.
The thing is that as expats, we evolve into a generally super open super intelligent super life-loving crowd of people. People who have lived in many places, people who are often in mix-cultural marriages, people who have often gown up in a culture that is not theirs, people who generally need a pretty good sense of openness to be able to evolve comfortably in cultures that are foreign, people who are used to being out of their comfort zones. So I found myself very surprised, and then very upset by the fact that I needed to debate the values of the liberals laws that were just passed in both countries. Laws that are about freedom of sexual orientation, freedom of family choices, freedom of adoption for same sex couples. I even needed to defend the benefit of a law allowing single mothers to procreate medically or to adopt (like in Canada or Israel). I felt I was replaying a discussion set in the 50s. It just did not make sense with my views of the world, with my values, that someone from my entourage would not share these values. 
There was no way of changing my interlocutor's point of view, tainted with religious dogmas. 
Then I was reminded that yes, even if it is a world trend, LGBT rights are absent in most parts of the world. Only a handful of countries have jumped over the fence of prejudices and discrimination and started protecting legally these people. Yes LGBT are vulnerable in most places of the world. Consequently it is normal to bump once in a while into people who are not yet aware of the issues at stakes. 
At least my friend and I were able to debate, to hear each other, and to agree to disagree.  

photo from wiki