Tuesday, December 24, 2019
The mixed up world of the Home Office
The Guardian reports that a man accused of pretending to be gay to avoid deportation to his native Malaysia, where homosexual acts are illegal, has been granted asylum after the Home Office accepted that people could be gay and single.
There is so much bundled up in that sentence that I am struggling as to where to start. The paper says that the result is being celebrated as a victory against outdated stereotypes about gay people. Those stereotypical attitudes must exist in the Home Office in abundance, where those determining asylum applications appear to think that unless somebody is promiscuous or sexually active, then they cannot be gay.
It is of course necessary to test claims made by asylum seekers, but I often wonder whether the hoops that many of them are required to jump through to be accepted, are strictly necessary. Is cynicism part of the training for officials? There must be a better way to do these things.
There is so much bundled up in that sentence that I am struggling as to where to start. The paper says that the result is being celebrated as a victory against outdated stereotypes about gay people. Those stereotypical attitudes must exist in the Home Office in abundance, where those determining asylum applications appear to think that unless somebody is promiscuous or sexually active, then they cannot be gay.
It is of course necessary to test claims made by asylum seekers, but I often wonder whether the hoops that many of them are required to jump through to be accepted, are strictly necessary. Is cynicism part of the training for officials? There must be a better way to do these things.
