Started by bigone21 at 20,Aug,13 23:11 other posts of bigone21
 | You must have read about it: new laws in Russia against homosexuals.
It's not allowed to "promote" (or inform about) "alternative lifestyles" (read: gay) when a minor (18-) could be in hearing distance (or read such information). What is YOUR feeling about this? A. Don't care, i'm not gay, doesn't affect me one bit; B. A new iron curtain around this country please, isn't everybody fed up with this Poetin-clown? C. Maybe a little bit of A. and B. but, we cannot leave it at that! The least we can do is to be loud and clear that such legislation is NOT in any way what makes a country CIVILICED! Votes and/or comments please!  |
Similar topics: 1.Fantasize about in-laws 2.Messages from Donald J. Trump.4 3.Evolution 4.In-laws 5.Russia-Ukraine
........Sadly the Putin government does not want democracy,...it wants to go back to one-party totalism, and the gangsters who actually run Russia would prefer that as well.....
1. Majority of population (more than 50%) of Russia actually supports that law. Only few intellectual and free-spirited people are against and I doubt they are even 5% of the population. And many just don't care, as usually.
2. That mentality is a consequence of living under oppression, but this is rather hard to explain. You see, when people live in conditions like that for several generations their culture becomes in a big part a culture of convicts. Among many other implications of this mentality anyone who is "different" is considered pariah. And gays in particular are looked upon as people of lowest status, who have no rights at all. In Russian prisons they are basically "untouchables" (no handshakes, no eating on the same table, no sitting on the same couch etc.) but still are constantly sexually abu.sed. And general population essentially share that attitude.
A few days ago there was a newspaper article here about the situation. I don't remember the whole article by head but it somewhat gave the following statements.
Under the communistic domination they (gays) 'didn't exsist'. You were just a communist or not. When the USSR fell the society that had been told what to do for so long was drifting and fell back onto the time before communism. And with that the values of that time. Next to that the role of 'the Party' was now taken over by the Orthodox church in saying what's right and wrong.
I would almost be inclined to go for option B. But then we also turn our backs to the ones involved.
I also think one of the big problems is the way the law was written. How is 'promotion' defined? In certain societies men kiss as a greeting. What if they meet in Russia and just are courtious to each other? Is that also promotion?
As you stated when you started your reply, this is not a political forum. I agree, but luckily anyone can give their opinion on any subject that rises here.
Firstly, communists who made revolution back in 1917 were actually very liberal in sexual aspect. May be too liberal. Laws related to sexuality that they established were the most liberal in Europe at that moment. But then dictator Stalin came to power and changed everything back, even more harsh that it was before the revolution. He introduced a 8 year sentence for "sodomy" into USSR criminal code and it lasted until the very end of USSR. So you can say that gays did not exist in USSR. It's very simple - if you declared you are gay you could go to prison and not theoretically, that law was applied. Or if you actually never engaged in homosexual acts, you could be sent to mental institution for correction. And there they practiced legal tortures, like insulin injections and other things I do not want to go into. So naturally no one wanted to declare their "unusual" orientation. But they existed, indeed. Sec.retly.
As for the laws in Russia - it's totally different question. And very big theme. I try to explain promptly, but not sure you will grasp the concept.
Russia (or most of ex-USSR countries for that matter) has very specific regime. It's very corrupt and basically what people who work for government do - they sell "licenses" to violate laws and regulations. It looks like this, for example: you want to open a bar and need a hundred of permissions from 20 different organizations, which is usually impossible to obtain legally, but you can pay a bribe (or rather a monthly payment or both) to town's governor and you can tell them all to go fuck themselves and not comply with any sanitary or other regulations. You can even have 14 y.o. nude dancers/prostitutes there or sell drugs, if you pay well enough. Local police won't touch you. Sometimes it's not a governor, but general attorney of the town or chief of the police. Depends on local power balance. Sometimes they all fight. Does not matter, you have to pay someone or several of them at once.
With that kind of system government is interested in making laws that are not well written, that allow very wide applications depending on a good (or rather bad) will of the judges. They are written so that people related to government can take money to permit someone to do not comply with those laws in one case and to throw someone into prison if they do not like them for exactly the same deal.
An important note: justice system is supposed to be independent from government, but in Russia it's not. And never was for past 100 years. So they all are interested in the same thing.
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Overall, I think Russia is going straight to fascism.
EVERY place is the place for political debate if people want to, unless it is... FORBIDDEN! you're the boss! if you think that talking about these issues is a bad thing and should be stopped, censor us who do! but since you make a (or some) living out of the 1st amendment I don't think you will.
But, admin, if you think that the right and well-being of (only) 5% of the people don't count, because 50% of the people don't care, because the are grown up on oppression, you are very cynical indeed!
I have hope that every year, a few people change their views, and see there is no threat in someone being gay..!
And Admin, if you run this gay/bi website, it would be great if you did too!
PS: if you know, tell us/me about what is going on there, because that is NOT common knowledge in my country!!
A majority supports it because the are led to believe that GAYS are a major thread to russian society, press is censored, some that speak out are imprissoned, and now WHAT??
what do you you think we should think or do about that if you seem to know about the situation in Russia??
sad... and as you say, the US and what we now know from Manning and Snowden, NSA, the British governement and the newspaper The Guardian, 1% have ALL's...
in that light, it's hard to be optimistical!