Then & Now | Gay Games 2023: the cabal of bigots who stopped Hong Kong sending a message of diversity, tolerance and inclusion to the world
- Hong Kong could have projected a positive, outward-looking vibe with its hosting of the Gay Games 2023. Instead, an anti-LGBT cabal declaimed against the event
- In medieval England public nuisances could be silenced with a brank’s bridle, a device that forced the offender’s mouth shut and suppressed their tongue
Well, that’s finally over and done with. After several years of periodic fuss, fanfare and a pandemic-caused delay, the Gay Games have been and gone.
A sudden influx of visitors, flush with “pink dollar” disposable income, should have been welcomed; every little bit helps, after all, in these times when international tourists are thin on the ground. Right along the line, everyone benefited.
And guess what! Contrary to the dire prognostications of Hong Kong’s more vocal Chicken Littles, the sky did not fall in, either during the Games or in the weeks that have followed their controversy-free conclusion.
Neither has any further and measurable decline in local moral standards occurred – at least as far as this writer has been able to observe. Life has gone on – just as it had done before. Who’d have thought it?
