Russia: the country that hates gay people

[David]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 16223.html

The Russian parliament is preparing to pass a bill that would outlaw "homosexual propaganda", which has prompted fears of a rise in homophobic violence, in a society that already has little tolerance of gay people.

Last week, a 23-year-old man was found dead in Volgograd, apparently attacked by two men he had told he was gay. He had been beaten up, sodomised with bottles, and had his genitals mutilated.

In this climate, the lack of gay people in public life is becoming more acutely felt. There are almost no openly gay figures in the worlds of entertainment, sport and politics.

Many popular singers and entertainers make little effort to hide their sexuality from friends and colleagues but "coming out" to the broader Russian population would be unthinkable. Surveys show that 80 per cent of Russians believe homosexuals should hide their true sexual orientation, and many Russian gays are used to living a double life, sometimes for decades.

"Homosexual propaganda"? These people make the deep south of the United States look sane and reasonable.

[stui magpie]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-the-country-that-hates-gay-people-8616223.html

The Russian parliament is preparing to pass a bill that would outlaw "homosexual propaganda", which has prompted fears of a rise in homophobic violence, in a society that already has little tolerance of gay people.

Last week, a 23-year-old man was found dead in Volgograd, apparently attacked by two men he had told he was gay. He had been beaten up, sodomised with bottles, and had his genitals mutilated.

In this climate, the lack of gay people in public life is becoming more acutely felt. There are almost no openly gay figures in the worlds of entertainment, sport and politics.

Many popular singers and entertainers make little effort to hide their sexuality from friends and colleagues but "coming out" to the broader Russian population would be unthinkable. Surveys show that 80 per cent of Russians believe homosexuals should hide their true sexual orientation, and many Russian gays are used to living a double life, sometimes for decades.

"Homosexual propaganda"? These people make the deep south of the United States look sane and reasonable.

In practice it sounds a lot like Australia and the rest of western society of 30 years ago. Not the laws, the practice. Remember Russia was locked up as a communist state for a fair while, they're a fair way behind.

Examples in pop culture of 30 years ago:

Rock Hudson
Molly Meldrum
Elton John.

All their friends and industry colleagues knew but the public didn't. FFS, Elton John even got married to a woman in Australia in what must have been a marketing exercise.

I still remember watching No 96 on TV. The day that launched was described as the day Australian TV lost it's virginity.

[Dr Pie]

I doubt if there were many people over the age of 20 who didn't know that Molly was gay even thirty years ago.

[stui magpie]

^

Maybe in Melbourne, but Countdown was national on the ABC and we didn't have the internet back then. FWIW I was 17 30 years ago and didn't know although I wasn't surprised when I was told.

The point was, it wasn't publicised. People kept it hidden publically.

[Brenny]

^ Sounds a lot like the AFL, 30 yrs later!

[David]

[stui magpie]

Hang on,

For all its awful aspects, the Soviet Union was ostensibly quite ahead of its time in terms of equality for women, treatment of ethnic minorities,

are you serious with this?

[sixpoints]

Not so sure the Soviet Union was ahead of it's time in it's treatment of ethnic minorities. It was an empire that asserted political and military rule to over 100 ethnic minorities. It also did its best to assert cultural dominance as well.
It essentially was Russians practicing hegemony over minorites. Russian became the linga franca, tens of millions of ethnic Russians emigrated (some voluntary, some forced) into non Russian areas.
Effectively the USSR had a Russian majority overall, but a plethora of areas where Russians were a distinct minority.
No need to ask Tartars, Moldovans, Latvians, Chechans or Ossetians what living under Soviet (read Russian) rule was like. You could add at least another 50 minorities at your leisure.
Those nations that have emerged post USSR may well struggle for years, but all empires fail, that's part of the nature of empires. So true to form as an empire fails, the unity of a common language, culture etc will result in peoples asserting self determination on national lines.
Russians becoming more nationalistic and reactionary is again true to form for a nation contracting and declining from its period of Imperial dominance.
It's not a good time to be anything besides an archetypal "Russian" in Russia. Scapegoats will be found, be they foreign, gay or otherwise.

[Dr Pie]

Hang on,

For all its awful aspects, the Soviet Union was ostensibly quite ahead of its time in terms of equality for women, treatment of ethnic minorities,

are you serious with this?

It's treatment of ethnic minorities was appalling, particularly under Stalin but David is right about the USSR's treatment of women which at least in terms of equality of opportunity was well ahead of the West. To give just one example the majority of doctors in the USSR were female by the 1960s, in Australia women medicos are approaching equal numbers with men but it really only applies to women and men under 40.

[David]

[Dr Pie]

[Jezza]

[stui magpie]

[think positive]

[David]

Absolutely I do believe in capitalism, as long as the social agenda is managed. I'm not into pure darwinistic "survival of the fittest" as I believe we have an obligation to ensure society looks after those incapable of looking after themselves. That extends to a liveable minimum wage, universal health care etc etc. Pretty much what we have here give or take a few tweaks.

I don't believe in pure socialism in any sense. It's not something I'm a student of but I'm not aware of anywhere in the world where it's worked and provided a better standard of living to the majority than capitalism.

For mine, socialism is about setting a bar that no one is allowed to go above. Everyone must be dragged down to the lowest common denominator.

Capitalism when done properly with a social conscience, sets a bar which no one should fall below, then provides opportunity for people to achieve according to their potential, ability and/or work ethic and be rewarded accordingly.

A social security system isn't capitalism, though. Same with public healthcare, taxation and workers' rights. As far as I can tell, countries like Australia display a mix of capitalist and socialist principles, and I'm not sure I could say with confidence which of the two is more evident.