Dispatches, a show on Channel 4 in the UK did a show on it last night called 'Hunted'. There's a lot of chat on Twitter and FB about it because it was pretty harrowing television. You can probably find it on YouTube if you search 'Hunted Channel 4' or similar.
This is absolutely false. From Wikipedia (with many, many, detailed citations and sources):
"Under the statute it is effectively illegal to hold any gay pride events, speak in defense of gay rights, or say that gay relationships are equal to heterosexual relationships."
You cannot hold a pride parade (a minor might see it); you cannot distribute brochures (a minor might read it); you cannot have a website (a minor might see it). The freedoms we take for granted in the West, limited though they may be, simply do not exist in Russia. Every single item that mentioned as something you can do in Utah is something you cannot do in Russia, by law. And that's not even touching on the more restrictive laws in many regions and cities, nor on the surge in hate crimes and other unofficial repression.
You're getting a lot of downvotes, but I see most people aren't bothering to explain your error to you. Let me help:
We're concerned with the amount of oppression actually occurring in Russia, and with the actual life of actual gay men and women in Russia. Your comments and links focus on the laws, but it is very possible to pass a wonderful sounding law and then ignore it in practice. In fact, Russia's predecessor, the Soviet Union, was famous for doing just this. Their constitution guaranteed a wide range of freedoms which were never actually enjoyed by the subjects of the Soviet empire.
If we want to evaluate the drafting of a law, we would of course turn to a legal scholar; their views on phrasing are critical. But if you want to know about life on the street, you turn to a journalist.
You stress the word "effectively" in the phrase "effectively illegal", as if this undermines the importance. It does nothing of the kind, because we want to know if you can hold an actual gay pride parade in Moscow (which you cannot), not whether any given law, if read and applied fairly, would ban gay pride parades (which it arguably does not).
And I see this same mistake (trying to analyse the laws rather than their application) repeatedly in your comments and in the sources you cite. You're effectively arguing that it doesn't matter if a law is being used to repress and hurt people, if you can find someone arguing that the law shouldn't be used this way. As if this magically makes the actual harm to actual people go away. But this is nonsense.
At the end of the day, their are gay pride parades in, eg, Utah, but not in, eg, Moscow. And everything you've said and linked to does not address this core point, that homosexuals are being brutally repressed in Russia, and not in the US.
For the other people who might be gay, and for the children who might be gay (at least 1% of them even at maximum oppression, and much more in an accepting society), no. You have no right to interfere, to force your unscientific and bigoted ideas on them, or to harm, oppress or imprison them. Your law is wrong. Your culture is wrong. Stop.
I already made myself quite explicit here, I think -- the rules governing the situation, and the where it actually goes (whether it is legal to promote being gay or to have six wifes, etc.) is a matter of collective choice -- which the overwhelming majority here has made long ago, and which is now formalized by the law.
And exactly matching your point on the colorful percentage varying depending on the established attitude, we plain prefer our future to remain 99% hetero (and not, say, become 80%), that simple :)
Speaking of culture, mine, I believe, is, sadly, better than yours (again, bigot you back!), as is my understanding of what is actually happening here.
No one speaks of oppression here -- those genetically different should possess all the usual rights (and even public sympathy to the complications their relative loneliness brings, not hatred).
Rights, but not the means to "convert" others in a long-term -- as where the society as a whole goes is a holistic choice, with the voices of 1% playing roughly proportional role.
Of course nobody speaks of oppression. Except the ones who do and spend time in jail for it.
And, no, the majority does not get to dictate the public behavior of the minority, so far as it does not harm others, except in a society that has internalized the intrinsic subhumanity of that minority. Which you have. You've washed your brain and I am done with you.
It's amazing that there are people who still think that letting gay people be publicly gay makes more gay people. Regressive parts of the U.S. have that problem, too, but at least they're dying off.
Some minors are gay. Now they are criminalized for even talking about themselves. See the recent example (which they backed off from due to international pressure)[1]. This is an immensely oppressive law, it needs to end immediately, and defending it is unconscionable.
Before you decide to down-vote me into oblivion and accuse me of hating minority groups please read the white paper linked above. Note I am not affiliated with the person who wrote it or scribd. I just want people to see both sides of the argument.
EDIT - And what a surprise down-voted. Seriously did anyone clicking the down arrow actually read the paper? Considering how long it is and that this post is 5 minutes old I seriously doubt it.
Still reading, but impressions on the intro and first chapter: what a totally bizarre paper. It's a "white paper", but it's written as an autobiographical narrative of his research process. And usually "Executive Summary" does not refer to a top 10 list.
It's very obviously written for the purposes of advocacy, despite protestations that it's not. The defense of this law seems to be:
1) It's not that bad. It doesn't target the LGBT community, it just bans any sort of public acknowledgement of a class of people that just happens to include LGBT folks.
2) The media has blown this way out of proportion by saying what the law only implies. Also by not mentioning that the law was enacted to protect the children. Why don't they mention the children?
3) Even if the law is that bad, it hasn't been enforced much yet.
4) Even if the law is bad, those guys over there are just as bed.
Oh yeah, definitely want to consider both sides of this argument.
Just out of curiosity, boyter. When you refer to "both sides", how would you sum up the other side in one sentence? "It's not that bad" is not, in fact, a defense of anything.
"Would the US government and news media (all owned by multinational conglomerates) implement a enormous propaganda campaign demanding the repeal of Russian Federation Federal Law No. 135-FZ because of the potential revenue loss a company in violation could incur with a 90 day suspension resulting in lower than projected revenues leading to a negative impact on the company’s stock price and ultimately causing a negative impact on key US economic indicators?"
"With all that in mind, we can conclude that the only accurate, fact-based, logical answer to the question is YES"
Wow, just wow.
This guy is a nutjob. He argues with a straight face that the Russian law isn't targeting the LGBT community, just non-traditional sexual relationships. He's either a liar about his long involvement in the LGBT community or he's learned absolutely nothing from it, as it's classic couching of terms as cover.
He even brings up the (unenforceable) anti-sodomy laws in US states, discussing how the majority of them are actually written to outlaw sodomy (non-vaginal intercourse) between any two people, not just same-sex couples, but they were used as tools to specifically target homosexual long after they were no longer (or rarely) enforced against heterosexual people. And yet he can't seem to connect the dots.
In any case, this goes from infuriating to fucking stupid pretty quickly. Check out the pages culminating in the conclusion I quoted above on page 70.
I agree that the conclusions are odd, however the material presented is what I am interested in. You can draw your own conclusions from there rather then from what the media is telling us.
One sentence?
"The law in its current form is an improvement over what existed before."
BTW I shouldn't have used the phrase "both sides". What I mean is we should not get caught up in the media's interpretation of the law. My mistake there and sorry for the confusion.
My referring to the "not that bad" is to way its being presented by the media.
I can see how advocating for equality can be listed as a crime based on what's listed in the law. It's interesting that the word "propaganda" is used which leaves a fair amount of room for interpretation. Point 3 is the sore point it seems, although I can see why its in there as you would not want to equate "child-adult" relationships which this would prevent. It all hangs on the word "nontraditional".
That Russia has a reasonable political platform regarding its LGBT citizens? I am not sure that it is possible to 'blow out of proportion' what is most certainly a human rights issue. This was your own assertion, not that of the paper's.
The topic was the Google Doodle showing support for LGBT people and your first impulse is to imply that the situation in Russia is in fact a non-issue.
I didn't say it was a non-issue. I said it was overblown. The current media coverage of the issue is overblown. I belive I am being down-voted because this is a sensitive issue. Anyone suggesting that perhaps its not as bad as it seems is instantly shouted down.
Please, please, please read the linked white paper. It is well researched, well written and provides citations and sources to its conclusions. It is also written by a lawyer who identifies themselves as part of the LGBT community.
If nothing else, scroll down and read the translation of the Russian Federation law in there (the only good version I could find) and really think on what it means to the individual.
You were bemoaning being downvoted, and I explained why.
I was commenting on the context which you provided inside of your original comment. If you actually don't care or don't wonder why such a comment would be downvoted, then disregard my post(s).
I was complaining about being down-voted over what was obviously an emotional response to a sensitive topic since it was so swift. I think that is a reasonable thing to complain about.
I expected to be down-voted. I was also hoping that there would be enough people around with an objective point of view to read the paper and provide solid cited counter arguments.
I hold no stake in this. I am neither Russian or part of the LGBT community. I am interested in human rights, and I want equal opportunities for all regardless of race, sexual orientation, gender or otherwise. Torch and pitchfork attacks are not the way to achieve this.
> That Russia has a reasonable political platform regarding its LGBT citizens?
Are you saying that this position can simply be disregarded out of hand? That strikes me as disrespectful and self-important. If nothing else it is non-conducive to any actual discussion on the matter - unless all you want is an echo chamber to reaffirm your preexisting positions on the matter.
> The topic was the Google Doodle showing support for LGBT people
Specifically in relation to the LGBT issues surrounding the Olympics, i.e., Russia's "anti-gay" laws. The Russian laws are very much a part of this topic. You're being disingenuous.
Absolutely I am. I don't need to share the evidence with you because, as a thinking and contributing member to these forums, I am sure you have accessed it yourself. Is there any reason I wouldn't discard an argument in favor of institutionalized racism? Or, more mildly, that institutionalized racism is a topic that is capable of being overblown?
The commenter called it "The LGBT Russia thing" and if that does not aptly sum up how trivial s/he perceives the topic to be, I don't know what does. "That human rights violation thing". Sorry, it doesn't fly with me.
I am not saying Russian laws are not a part of the topic. What I am saying is that characterizing the topic as being "overblown" by citing that paper is absolutely ludicrous.
EDIT: Wanted to add in this: How do you have 'rational discourse' when one side of the discussion is demonstrably pursuing nothing less than a human rights violation? It is like saying the Catholic church's sex scandal was 'overblown', or slavery, or any other human rights topic you can imagine. Where is the rational discourse there? How can "human rights violations" ever be an "overblown" topic?
I'm sorry, this paper is bizarre and somewhat incoherent. magicalist goes into some of the problems with it, but the even larger problem that I see is that it seems to completely ignore the larger climate of intimidation and erasure by public officials, and look at "are specific people being harmed by this specific law", and I'm disinclined to trust its analysis even on that.
It's written by somebody who claims to be a journalist and managing editor yet has basically zero online presence in bylines or anything that I can find. Nor does he provide any contact information (apart from being from Chicago, which, good for him, I guess?). That makes very little sense.
In the US at large, LGBT rights and support for them has been growing, imperfectly and inconsistently, but growing. In Russia, it seems that there's been a backlash, and Putin and company are stirring up public sentiment against LGBT people. I'll take the word of Russians that things are actively getting worse:
I read the executive summary. It's great that Russia is making legal progress, and I mean that, but that doesn't change the situation on the ground where people are being beaten and arrested.
The paper also talks about statistics on how often gay people are beaten in Russia. United States is far worse in this respect. Further United States has a greater incarceration rate for gays than Russia.
The Russian search engine? I'm not sure what you mean.
My comment references a Russian propaganda technique of brushing off human rights violation accusations by saying "Yeah well, the US is shitty", as though that excuses them. I suppose Yandex could in theory be used to distribute this form of propaganda, I don't really know much about them.
I get that. I just don't see how it's relevant in a thread about Russia's laws. There's progress to be made and progress to be celebrated all over the world.
Thank you for linking to this. Finally someone taking the time to actually discuss the law and its consequences rather than rehashing the same breathless bs that is printed and repeated in the media.
I expected to get voted down. Not because what I posted didn't add value, but because this is the sort of topic I avoid in day to day conversation because it causes fights. There is too much emotion involved.
I am not saying there are not problems. I am saying that the media coverage of it is overblown, and because of that any rational thought or discussion about it is impossible. I provided a link to a document which as I pointed out elsewhere is well written, researched, provides citations and has some reasonable conclusions.
I understand it is hard to remove emotion from this sort of topics, in much the same way that discussions on climate change rapidly spiral out of control.
I had hoped that HN was beyond being a vote brigade and that posting it would produce some reasonable discussion on the topic.
No, it's not emotion in this case. The paper you linked begins with 100 repetitions of "did you know that the law actually is about children?". To which I have to answer: yes. And more importantly: yes, of course. That (hiding anti-gay legislation behind supposedly anti-pedophilia legislation) is a known strategy. It's actually one of the most disgusting things about this kind of legislation because it sends a message of "the state approves of using gay and pedophile interchangeably". Also the article seems to suggest that everyones afraid of all gay people getting arrested in Russia now. That's not at all the issue. What people (afaik) are afraid of is citizen-on-citizen violence against gay people getting an official stamp of approval. Because hunting pedophiles is protecting children. Please read the following section a couple of times:
> Public actions designed to promote pedophilia, sexual relations with minors,pederasty, lesbianism and bisexuality shall be prohibited.
You see what is missing? Gay. Lesbian? Bisexual? In there. Gay not. Why? The subtext is: it's implied by either pedophilia or pederasty. Yes, those are techniques you find also among American conservatives fighting gay rights. But you know what? Those images and stereotypes can be found all over the world, for centuries at least. But making laws that turn those stereotypes official? Yeah, that's a problem. Not the people being convicted by those laws. The precedence such laws create.
Sorry I disagree. This topic is highly emotional. That's why this thread was identified as a flame war by HN and why there is so much heated discussion.
I agree that there is lots of legislation which uses anti-pedophilia as a way of passing though "Won't somebody please think of the children!" works, and that's why it is used. I disagree with it of course, but yes I am aware of it.
Wait you are saying that by deliberately excluding "gay" then its implied? Sorry but that's a bit of a stretch which I disagree with.
Look, as far as I can tell this law can be boiled down to "We don't want people to force non-traditional marriage beliefs on minors". The specifics of it have issues. I can see how advocating for equality can be listed as a crime based on what's listed there though. Its interesting that the word "propaganda" is used which leaves a fair amount of room for interpretation. Point 3 is the sore point it seems, although I can see why its in there as you would not want to equate child-adult relationships which this would prevent. It all hangs on the word "nontraditional" and "propaganda".
I have to ask, what did I write that was not reasonable? I can only assume "blown out of proportion" but I have yet to see evidence to the contrary that the media has not done this.
I agree with you and I want to add that in my view, the idea of something which is so clearly a front-and-center human rights issue, cannot easily be "overblown". Violence against people, discrimination, hate-based crimes - these are all things which rate fairly high on the "worth covering" scale of news media.
> It is well researched, well written and provides citations and sources to its conclusions.
First, this white paper is horribly written in comparison to a real research paper or academic report. It seems to be written for the audience of a site such as Infowars, which, not surprisingly, is one of the main sites that have promoted this white paper.[1]
Second, I was mostly interested in the author's comparison of the rates of hate crimes committed against LGBT people in Russia and the US. Not surprisingly, the author simply compares rates reported by the SOVA Center and the FBI. Anyone who has studied criminology for five minutes knows that you can't adequately compare the levels of crime in different areas this way. The American Society of Criminology, the largest criminological association in the world, has stated this numerous times in their publications, including their policy statements[2] (which strongly recommend against using Unified Crime Reports (UCRs) to compare levels of crime in different cities that are located IN THE SAME COUNTRY).
> It is also written by a lawyer who identifies themselves as part of the LGBT community.
Yes, and Bjørn Lomborg is a lifelong environmentalist, which I also learned at Infowars.
The only mention of Brian M. Heiss, the author of the white paper, anywhere on the Internet[3][4] is this white paper. Please direct me to this author, which should be easy since he's apparently your favorite source regarding this issue. I would never cite a source whose existence I couldn't prove.
> Letting the media tell you what to think
Are Amnesty International[5] and Human Rights Watch[6] "the media"?
I couldn't care less about anyone's sexual preference. But I find it wholly unfair that someone could change from a man to a woman and then compete against other women. That is something altogether different and should not be accepted in the Olympics in my opinion.
I realize the difference with Russia is that it is practically illegal for LGBT to exist but let's talk about the USA for a moment where 33 states refuse to consider legalizing gay marriage and a few are even testing of the idea of emergency suspending ALL marriages just so people who are gay cannot marry if they cannot be excluded separately.
There are still plenty of places in the USA where you could be killed for being gay, the difference is not by the state but by individuals.
the difference is not by the state but by individuals.
And therein lies the distinction. We still have a long way to go, but our laws are structured and being structured in a way that protects those rights. Even though some states might be trying to push back the tide of tolerance, the momentum is seriously in the direction of equal rights. Every country has idiots and bigots, but when a state sponsors such bigotry, then the light should be shined on those wrongs. Our ignoble idiots exonerate actions of legislators and leaders in Russia.
Did you know that in Russia you can't get fired for being gay? At the same time it is perfectly legal to do so in United States. When did it become legal in United States for gays to have sex? Kinda like in 2003...except 13 states have not repealed sodomy laws. By the way, sodomy is perfectly legal in Russia since 1993.
That's not exactly a relevant comparison. We're not talking about a Prop 8 or DOMA supporter lecturing Russia. We're talking about a Google using their enormous soapboax to do so in a fresh, defiant, and powerful way.
Google has been quite active in fighting for gay marriage within US, submitting amici briefs to the court cases, spending money on campaigns, and so forth...
All state based sodomy laws were invalidated by Lawrence vs Texas in 2003 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas). The only reason the laws are still on the books is because they've been knowingly superceded.
"The supremacy of federal law over state law only applies if Congress is acting in pursuance of its constitutionally authorized powers."
Congress does not have an authority to govern sexual conduct. Just because enforcement of sodomy laws has been unpopular long before 2003, doesn't mean they don't exist.
...wow. You really don't understand how the US legal system works, do you?
Hint: The Supremacy Clause limits federal law; the product of the legislative branch. Lawrence v. Texas is court decision; the product of the judicial branch. That's like saying the second amendment requires the legalisation of marijuana because pot is a type of rifle. ><
I've come to the point where I think the acronym is silly. I think right now we are up to "LGBTQIAPK". I may be a little out of date on that.
The fact is, some of the issues between the groups in the acronym are shared and some aren't. At one point in time, banding together for them was probably useful if not necessary. Today I think each group would be better going it alone, as they all have very unique concerns.
Our shared problem is patriarchy and gender roles. "Why would a man take the inferior role" is behind phobia of gay men and trans women. "Don't let a woman get out of her place, as a sex object for men" is behind phobia of lesbians and trans men. Banding together makes sense.
With the exception of T in sports, unless they compete in their "old" gender. Men and women's bodies are different due to chemical reasons, not just looks. Transgender operations only change the looks, not the chemical reality underneath.
So the outcome of that is obvious : either disallow people to choose gender in sports, or live with the knowledge that all female records will be broken by (ex-)men in no time whatsoever.
The actual scientists, who aren't bigots, have concluded that trans women have no testosterone advantage. After a year or two, a trans woman on testosterone blockers and estrogen (or surgery and estrogen) has the musculature of a woman. Bone mass doesn't change, but that's a disadvantage - more weight to lug around. This is why the olympics and other sporting bodies allow trans women to compete as women.
Actually, the latest version is just "GSM" (Gender and Sexual Minorities), because the practice of just adding more and more minorities to a long list is silly. The more you list, the more exclusionary it is to the ones you leave off, and yet something like LGBTQIAPK is a acronym-salad so extreme as to be self parodying.
Just say GSM at leave it at that; it includes every minority group from the LGBTQIAPK by definition, and all the others we might think up in the future.
Well the olympics already discriminates against mens in women competitions and vice versa.
But anyway LGBT support or condamnations is pure bullshit and should not be in the Olympics.
To much sex talking. Just because there's so much sexual media doesn't mean that the LGBT should get their part of the attention on the news. We should go the other way and talk less about sex in the media.
So, in parallel, Christianity, since it advocates the religious ceremony of marriage between a man and a woman, must also be inherently sexual in nature.
I hope it is not too arrogant of me to assume that you are straight because I cannot fathom a gay person arriving at the conclusions you have arrived at.
Working under this assumption, would you say then, that any relationship you had with a member of the opposite sex was inherently sexual in nature?
Again, give me a break.
You can love someone and want to be with them for the rest of your life and not want to have sex with them. It really isn't a stretch of the imagination.
Text editors are very opinionated. Emacs ships with tons of propaganda, including the complete text of rms' political manifesto; and Vim advocates for a charity in Uganda.
edit to add: It's the GNU Manifesto, which is an appendix in emacs' Info node.
Anyway, I use DDG from time to time, I like it but the results aren't always the best in my experience. More power to you, I hope DDG works well for you, your comments in this thread just seem pretty disingenuous.
Google has always shown doodles for most of it's history, and it has often had a 1 or 2 line subtitle for certain special events, emergencies, or holidays. Egads man! It's taking up approximately the same physical space it always had, comparing this to Yahoo's portal is ridiculous.
Also, if you use the Omnibox or other search boxes in the browser, you don't even see it. You only see this if you visit www.google.com
I'm trying to reclaim the name for positive associations. Many people don't even know how Oliver Cromwell was, I've even encountered British people who didn't know the history.
Anyway, there's actor James Cromwell. We need to band together and overcome the negative association with the good ole' Lord Protector.
(My grandfather used to tell me that he traced our ancestry and supposedly we are closely/directly descended, but I don't buy it. On the other hand, 23andme localized my ancestral DNA pretty strongly to the UK)
He was held responsible for a massacre 5 miles from where I was born. I did a school project on it and stood in a stone tower room where local women and children had gone for refuge but were discovered and slaughtered. Even closer to home was a spot where as Cromwell's army passed a man stood looking at them. His behaviour was viewed as impudent and he was summarily hanged.
As a small kid he was the devil incarnate to me.
Since then my view has become a lot less black and white but it's hard to shake off childhood associations entirely.
His statue is still in front of the House of Commons though, I think. I found that sort of strange, like having a statue of Hitler in front of the Reichstag or other government buildings.
The story I was told growing up that he was hated so much when he died, they dug up his body and desecrated it.
It is discussed by people on 'political' tv != it is political.
You can politicize anything you want. But there is nothing inherently political about showing support for an LGBT human being. 'What neoconservatives want to make political issues of' is an entirely different matter.
The moment something is merely mentioned in a law, it is henceforth to be considered under the header of "political topic"? Why? Because some political strategist (or worse, lobbyist) told you it was worth legislating for or against?
Your position can be summed up as "It is okay for Google to make Google Doodles about person X until whatever person X worked on became politicized".
Why was it okay for them to make a doodle about Simone de Beauvoir but not about your fellow LGBT human beings? This is the straw that broke the camel's back for you? Really?
It is unfortunate that you are so willing to consume as 'politics' whatever topic political strategists have decided to include in their party's talking points.
It is fortunate that said political strategists chose LGBT rights and not, say, the legality of JavaScript. Because then your Google search would have been a moot point entirely, JS having been made "political".
Why is that a problem? If they want to send a message to a lot of people, their front page would be the best place, wouldn't it? God forbid you get a little bit of human rights activism with your search results...
There's a big difference between sending messages to text editor users and a logo on a website. Note that the logo is always there; it's just a little different this time.
Every google doodle is telling you google's stance on something. Google's doodle of MLK the other week told you their stance on black rights. How is this any different, except for the fact that gay rights make you uncomfortable?
I find it horrific that you consider your rights to be personally violated by your making use of a free, non-government-controlled, non-required public service.
I find it also horrific that you make a false parallel to text editors which also have demonstrable 'political' (as you've employed the term) positions.
And for those who for whatever reason cannot see it on Google, it reads:
"The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play." –Olympic Charter
