Tom Daley’s using his platform to speak out against discrimination across the globe.
Recently, Tom Daley won a gold medal for synchronized diving at the Commonwealth Games.
Celebrating his win with fellow diver Dan Goodfellow, Daley took to Twitter to share a picture of the two holding their new medals, but it was what he used to caption the picture that everyone’s talking about.
In the tweet, which you can find below, Daley shared that he feels lucky to be living in a country where he can be open about his sexuality.
“37 of the competing nations criminalise being LGBT+. I feel so lucky to be able to be openly who I am without worry. I hope one day every athlete from every nation in the commonwealth will be free to compete openly as who they are too!”
While the number of countries that criminalize homosexuality is decreasing, like Trinidad and Tobago which had a ruling against criminalizing homosexuality just yesterday, there are still more than 70 countries around the globe that have laws against male homosexuality and 45 with laws against female homosexuality.
On top of that, more than half of those countries belong to the Commonwealth (an international organization made up of countries that were previously British colonies/properties, but are now independent yet willing to keep international ties). But again, Trinidad and Tobago is currently in the process of lowering that number to 36.
That said, many advocates from several Commonwealth countries are like Daley and are objecting to how fellow countries (or their own countries) are handling LGBTQ citizens.
As Indy 100 reports, at the end of this year’s Commonwealth Games, government officials and activists will join together for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, and several LGBTQ advocates are expected to attend.
h/t: Indy 100
Dear Brother Tom,
Dear Brother Tom,
The rules which created by our god is not a discrimination to the mankind. To fulfill our own desire, we change our almighty god's rule (on homosexuality) and called it discrimination to others who strongly obey the rule. Democracy by majority cannot change what is stated in Bible, al-Quran and other holy books.
Regards,
Rizwan