Celebrated Harvard grad now persecuting gays

Colleges & Universities Harvard University
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<p>Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, KSG '71, now back in Liberia after being showered with accolades in Cambridge and delivering the Commencement Address at Harvard last spring – with a quick stop in Stockholm to pick up a Nobel “Peace” Prize from a swarm of fawning A-listers on her way back – is getting down to the business of solving her country’s “gay” problem: (from The Guardian):</p>

<p>(and I love the typically mealy-mouthed response by sometime Yale professor Tony Blair)</p>

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<p>"The Nobel peace prize winner and president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has defended a law that criminalises homosexual acts, saying: “We like ourselves just the way we are.”</p>

<p>In a joint interview with Tony Blair, who was left looking visibly uncomfortable by her remarks, Sirleaf told the Guardian: “We’ve got certain traditional values in our society that we would like to preserve.”</p>

<p>Liberian legislation classes “voluntary sodomy” as a misdemeanour punishable by up to one year in prison, but two new bills have been proposed that would target homosexuality with much tougher sentences.</p>

<p>Blair, on a visit to Liberia in his capacity as the founder of the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI), a charity that aims to strengthen African governments, refused to comment on Sirleaf’s remarks.</p>

<p>When asked whether good governance and human rights went hand in hand, the British former prime minister said: “I’m not giving you an answer on it.”</p>

<p>“One of the advantages of doing what I do now is I can choose the issues I get into and the issues I don’t. For us, the priorities are around power, roads, jobs delivery,” he said"</p>

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<p>Maybe Harvard should have a Liberian who has been imprisoned under these laws as Class Day speaker or something to provide some sort of balance …</p>

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<p>Peace prize… how ironic.</p>

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<p>OMG, this lady addressed commencement last year (I guess?) … </p>

<p>"peace prize’’ …well! don’t even get me started on this…</p>

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<p>“The women were recognized “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”[1]
Contents”</p>

<p>"“We like ourselves just the way we are […] We’ve got certain traditional values in our society that we would like to preserve.”[43] According to Tiawan Gongloe, Liberia’s former solicitor general, “If she tried to decriminalise the [current anti-gay] law it would be political suicide.”[43]"</p>

<p>Just to put things in context. This would be like Obama speaking out against Israel - never going to happen. It’s not that the person holds certain views themselves but if they went against the country’s status quo, it would be, as stated above, “political suicide.”</p>

<p>Please don’t mistake this for my own views. Just trying to provide some context before everyone starts derailing this women, which you are, of course, free to do.</p>

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<p>I don’t think President Obama deserved the Peace Prize either.</p>

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<p>Lol. I agree with that but I was simply saying that Obama can’t do certain things because it would be political suicide. This lady seems to be in the same situation - as in, her decision to support the law says nothing of her own beliefs? Except it does say that she is an arm of the (a group of) people and the state, as are most, if not all, politicians today.</p>

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<p>^Yes, but that makes it understandable not justifiable. A successful political career isn’t an an end in itself, at least on the same level that not persecuting people is. You could argue that moderate politicians are better at enacting change than radical ones, but I don’t know if that’s true and I don’t know if it applies to her case.</p>

<p>To bring this back on topic re: Harvard, I don’t think Harvard should celebrate people who maintain an unjust status quo to further their own political careers. History is full of those people. Most politicians are those people. Harvard should reserve its praise for exceptionalism.</p>

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<p>Harvard should publicly condemn this ignorant, hateful woman.</p>

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<p>Harvard isn’t in the business of muckraking. It sucks that she’s a bigoted dunce, but it’s up to her and her countrymen to find their way out of the Dark Ages.</p>