To feel our quality of life in the UK gets lower every year?

[Playingvideogames]

Off the back of another thread where I mentioned my childhood homes being bought by my parents for under 300k in the late 90s/early 2000s, and are now all selling for 700k+.

I feel like our quality of life just dwindles every year. Everything becomes more expensive. Housing is low quality, small and extortionate. The weather is awful 70% of the time. Everything feels so overcrowded with fewer green spaces and natural beauty as more housing estates go up. The roads are awful, choked with traffic and potholed. Constant roadworks here yet nothing ever seems to get solved. Customer service is a bit rubbish, nothing really works as intended. More and more rules about what you can and can’t do. People just seem stifled and stressed.

I’m sure people will rush along to say how wonderful the NHS is and similar, but I sometimes feel really envious of people living in places where (although not perfect) they have something reliable to enjoy - great weather, a nice big house, just more space and less overcrowding.

I don’t think I’m being unreasonable but I wonder if you do!

Right, but there's a big jump being that & it being something you could be jailed for!

Indonesia (mostly), Jordan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Bahrain are among the Muslim countries which somehow manage to have heavily Muslim populations while not banning homosexuality (though discrimination is still heavy).

Most Christian-majority countries & Jewish-majority Israel don't ban homosexuality yet still have many practising religious people...

Strange how people are up in arms over it when it's a mosque though. Don't hear so much about it when it's churches. The Catholic church neither ordains women as priests not accepts sex outside of marriage or between gay people. .

There has been plenty of criticism of the Catholic church on these things. And there's a difference between a religion not allowing something and it being illegal.

So people who are gay and who can't afford to leave thrse countries have to stay single and never tell anyone they're gay or else risk imprisonment, torture or death. And that's just fine according to you.

Disgusting.

If they are banned from ever having a consenting relationship that's still persecution.

And even if it wasn't, you say that like persecuting gay people for daring to fall in love and/or have sex is justified. Which is conpletely completely sick. I hope you never have a gay child.

That's because the Catholic church, fortunately, doesn't control political policies of countries anymore really apart from Vatican State. France, Italy, Spain etc all allow homosexuality, have partnership rights etc

Unjust laws should not be kowtowed to.

Exactly, Western Catholic-majority countries are not theocracies, and many are increasingly culturally Catholic rather than super devout. Disingenuous to compare to Gulf Countries where Sharia law is the basis of general law (Saudi etc).

How would you like to live like that?

Why is it always a straight white woman saying to tolerate the backwards bullshit of the UAE? Just don't be who you are in public and all good? Absolute nonsense. Prostitution is also strictly forbidden in Islam, but have you seen the number of hookers walking around Dubai? I guess it's not forbidden when one of the crown princes or rich expats need some company for the night? It's just blatant hypocrisy.

Why are you only speaking of WESTERN Catholic countries? Take the Phillipines for example. That's a pretty devout country. Gay marriage or Civil partnerships are not allowed I believe.

But then again Poland and Slovakia are the same. It's not technically illegal but gay people have far less rights

To be fair, the poster may be assuming that these laws are rarely enforced. Death penalty or life imprisonment is I think extremely rare,,but that's a low bar! People do get imprisoned for it.

This article is interesting.

This bit is very Orwellian. Anyone extolling the virtues of Dubai should remember how curtailed freedom of speech is.

'The UAE government heavily censors online content, blocking access to LGBT websites, forums, and dating platforms. The country’s only internet provider operates a proxy server that filters content deemed "immoral." Authorities also monitor online activity, including chat rooms and social media, to identify individuals engaged in discussions about LGBT issues.'

https://www.detainedindubai.org/homosexuality-in-the-uae

Lgbt content is "immoral" but prostitution is cool.

To be clear, I have no issues with either, just the hypocrisy of it all.

Exactly, I think a lot of it is Arab racism. Some wealthy Arab men (and some Arabs generally) see black people or white Slavs as lesser, so it's OK for women of those nations to be trafficked.

Very 'I'm alright, Jack!' 🤣

How submissive- Dubai must no doubt be keen to have expat residents who value liberty, freedom of speech etc so lightly.

Well, prostitution is illegal- the issue is more that the government don't want things that put off Western expats (like Jideom here!) so crack down on visible crime. But they don't care about what happens to poor, trafficked, non-Arab women, nor do they care if rich men do vile things if it keeps them happy...

I often think this. Yet a lot of people believe we need to increase the birthrate.

And people facing religious persecution can just convert?

The actual lengths people will go to.

Are you also perfectly fine with protesters being rsped, tortured and killed in Iran right now? People in places like North Korea, Russia and Chechnya being disappeared for criticising the government? Uyghurs in Xinjiang being sent to "re-education" camps? After all, it's there countries and their rules. As long as it doesn't affect you personally, right?