Talk about a big gay scandal. This week brought news of a gay Virgin cruise ship called Scarlet Lady, which, by my count, is at least a triple entendre. In recent days, the ship was barred from docking in both Turkey and Egypt. To make it even more of a gay hate crime, the Scarlet Lady was carrying not just 2,000 gay Americans but also Patti LuPone.
The mainstream media, and what remains of the gay press, swiftly framed this as a pattern-example of anti-LGBT discrimination. Indeed, CNN ran the story under the headline: “Twice-Rejected American Cruise Puts Spotlight on Rollback of LGBTQ Rights, Passengers Say.”
The story CNN and others ran with was drawn in part from the testimony of one Kyle Olsen, the owner of an LGBT travel company who claimed that the ban reflected a “broader global trend.” He added that “We’re seeing a rise in right-wing governments and increasingly conservative political movements, and in many places LGBTQI+ rights are being rolled back as a result.” According to Olsen, “The decisions by Turkey and Egypt don’t exist in isolation.”
The strong insinuation of these reports is that the spurning of Scarlet Lady is a result of a world in which Donald Trump has been reelected and right-wing populism is on the march worldwide.
