As the old saying goes, look in the mirror before you judge others. United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken recently came out against a ban on rainbow armbands at the World Cup tournament in Qatar, which various European team captains had intended to sport in support of LGBTQ rights and against discrimination. Blinken flagged the ban as “concerning” and a restriction on “freedom of expression”.
The secretary’s scolding came on the heels of another rather “concerning” development on the world stage: a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in the US state of Colorado that killed five people and wounded 18 others. This, in a country that fancies itself the global role model in terms of respect for freedom of expression, human rights, and all that good stuff – and yet where it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to exercise their right to not be massacred at nightclubs, elementary schools, places of worship, shopping malls, and so on. In 2016, the US witnessed its worst mass shooting in history when 50 people were killed in an attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
This year, an independent UN human rights expert found that LGBTQ rights in the US are “under a concerted attack” and being “deliberately undermined” by state governments. Add to this landscape the institutionalised racism and discrimination that constitutes “freedom” in the US, and it seems US officials might have slightly more pressing matters to attend to on the home front than World Cup armbands.
Source: .bc.ctvnews.ca
Wednesday, April 22, 2026
