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Apparently, the USA doesn’t care about dozens of anti-gay nations, only Russia… after Snowden went there, and where gay sex has been legal since 1993. The No Agenda podcast with Adam Curry and John C Dvorak singlehandedly broke the story that American propaganda about supposedly horrendous Russian anti-gay law is bullshit. The legislation is not draconian. In some ways, Russia is more progressive than the USA on gays. The faux outrage only started after Snowden went to Russia. It’s about political payback, not justice for LGBTs.
An astonishing 129-page White Paper (Russian Federation Anti-Gay Laws: An Analysis and Deconstruction) looks at the so-called anti-gay Russian legislation (as the American media labels it). No Agenda debunked it, so, the White Paper author, Brian Heiss, researched the topic. He produced a thorough report, leading to a further discrediting of the thesis. The entire anti-gay and anti-Putin propaganda stems solely from the US government; it’s payback for the embarrassing fact that Snowden uses Russia as a sanctuary from the American government. This is a tremendous humiliation to the US State Department. Creating this false narrative about anti-gay Russian sentiment is part of a seemingly never-ending attack on Russia and its Olympics. Their goal is twofold:
- We must punish Russia for its “disobedience” (for not handing over Snowden)
- We need to humiliate Putin (for not handing over Snowden and for cocking a public snook at the USA)
Heiss is gay and works promoting diversity, he initially started his research to prove Curry and Dvorak wrong, then, discovered they were quite correct. You should know that Curry’s daughter is lesbian, and he, his wife, his daughter, and her girlfriend were on a float in the recent Amsterdam Gay Pride Parade. He’s no bigot (and whilst he likes to play the fool, he’s anything but). Heiss said, “The fact that both Adam and John are true supporters/allies of LGBTs made it impossible to dismiss their analysis superficially; so, that Sunday afternoon with great confidence, I became a man on a mission… to completely disprove their analysis. This white paper is the product of that mission. I invite you to read this paper and join me on this journey; a journey which included many twists and turns, a range of emotions and enlightenment, all of which I experienced and have tried to represent in my writing”.
Excerpts from the White Paper:
- The law never mentions or uses the word gay, lesbian, homosexual, or any other LGBT identifier
- The law focuses on children; its title is “On Protections of Minors from Propaganda of Non-Traditional Sexual Relations”. The messaging and strategy to bring the ban on propaganda from the law of several regions to national laws is part of a larger family values push, based on the successful anti-same sex marriage push in the USA
- Statistically, you’re far more likely to be the victim of an anti-LGBT hate crime in the USA than in Russia
- In Russia, your boss can’t fire you from your job for being an LGBT person, in the USA, they can
- Since 1993, gay sex is legal in Russia; in 12 US states, gay sex is a crime
- US President Obama said, “I have no patience for countries that try to treat gays or lesbians or transgender persons in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them”. His policies prove he has nothing but patience
The law itself is nothing like the hysteria we hear in this country. The text of the law bans adults from initiating contact with minors/children who don’t self-identify as LGBT for the express purpose of encouraging the minor/child to explore non-traditional sexual relationships where there wasn’t interest before. There’s nothing in the legislation that prevents a minor/child who doesn’t openly identify as LGBT to seek resources on their own as they come to terms with their sexuality during the difficult period of adolescence (any of us who identify as LGBT experienced that). In fact, nothing in the legislation prevents LGBT youth resources to give services to minors who seek such services themselves. Although there’s much confusion over what the anti-“propaganda” law means, not even its strongest proponents argue that it amounts to criminalisation of homosexuality.
31 January 2014
Bob Morris
Politics in the Zeros
http://polizeros.com/2014/01/31/russian-anti-gay-law-isnt-draconian-us-response-snowden-payback/
Editor’s Note:
The Church in the motherland has a nuanced view of homosexual people… as does most of the Church here. Note the term I used… “homosexual people”, not “homosexuality”. HH said that the Church respects all human choices, INCLUDING THOSE OF SEXUAL ORIENTATION, but that it reserves the right to call sin a sin. That is, the Church accepts homosexual people, but it doesn’t bless homosexuality. The Church is against same-sex marriage, but some sources I consulted said that it could accept the state allowing a legal union between two people, but that the Church wouldn’t and couldn’t bless it. As one source wrote:
What the state does is one thing; what the Church does is another. We coöperate… sometimes, we agree; sometimes, not. It’s a vast improvement over 1937…
I asked the same sources about Scott Lively, the loudmouthed rightie who claims to be a big influence on Putin and HH. One friend wrote:
He’s not been at the Danilovsky, Chisty Pereulok, or Peredelkino at all. No one’s seen him with Putin at all. His assertions are interesting, to say the least.
I urge all Orthodox Christians to take great care with this topic, especially online and in public. The konvertsy hold acrid views that aren’t in concord with real Church teachings, but they’ve terrorised many into silence. DO NOT ARGUE WITH THEM UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE. Oppose them, if you must (to defend this-or-that person)… otherwise, steer clear of these demented toddlers and their crackbrained assemblies and overheated online fora. We have a bishop or two who’ve sold out to them, and I wouldn’t want to see any of you hurt. Remember how Podmo and Rose (I reread Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future recently… Rose was as nutty as a fruitcake) sandbagged Lazar Puhalo (Puhalo wasn’t entirely in the right, but he did fall into the snare that they laid for him)… these people have no scruples… don’t give ’em a pretext to cosh you. The konvertsy are ploughing their own furrow; in the end, they’ll leave us, just as Brookline did, just as Podmoshensky did, just as the St Edward the Martyr lot in England did, just as the Osborne clique did, just as the Pashkovsky faction did. It’s what schismatics at heart do, kids. We’re not good enough for them. Yet, I reiterate, and I put it in ALL CAPS:
DO NOT ARGUE WITH THEM
That’s not what Christ’s Church is all about. Let the “warriors” like me fight them. However, note well that I don’t haunt the commboxes of their websites, nor do I post on some of their better-known fora. I’ve learnt that it does no good (and the plug-uglies complain to their pals in the higher clergy, and YOU get clobbered). I’d recommend that you do likewise. Oh, one last thing… Russia has allowed transsexual people to “change the sex” on their legal documents since 1997. I asked my sources on that one, and this reply sticks out:
The Church has nothing to say about the state’s requirements for passports and propiskas. We’ve had no need to rule on it, so, we haven’t. The Church doesn’t define something unless it’s in contention, and it isn’t. It doesn’t relate to eternal salvation, so, it’s on a far back burner.
Now, I call THAT good sense… please, don’t believe the rubbish about the Church calling for the criminalisation of homosexuality. There’s been nothing on patriarchia.ru or in the ZhMP… that is, there’s nothing official in the works, not now, not later, not any time at all. Keep focused, pass the jug… and DON’T ARGUE WITH MONOMANIACAL IDIOTS. Your life will be so much more peaceful…
BMD
Voices from Russia 
They Can’t Kill a Horrifying “Kill the Gays” Bill in California
Tags: California, Initiative, LGBT, political commentary, politics, United States, USA
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Editor:
There’s been shameless black propaganda about a supposed “war on gays” in Russia. The following is from a Russian state news outlet. Read it and find out the truth. It’s not what Jen Psaki alleges, is it? The truth, as always, is nuanced, and not cut n’ dried.
Orthodox people… Dreher and Whiteford do NOT speak for the Church (neither do I, but I never made any such claim, as they do, repeatedly)…
BMD
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Last month, a California attorney, for the small fee of 200 USD (11,860 Roubles. 1,242 Renminbi. 12,464 INR. 252 CAD. 258 AUD. 185 Euros. 134 UK Pounds), proposed a ballot measure to violently kill all gays and lesbians, a proposition nearly everyone assumed would be promptly put to bed. However, because of a state law, the ISIL-like proposition will almost certainly continue to the next legislative phase. The rather offensive “Sodomite Suppression Act” proposed by Huntington Beach attorney Matt McLaughlin would allow heterosexuals to kill gays and lesbians by “bullets to the head,” or “any other convenient method”. In other words, it’s a bill that permits… rather, encourages… the public to murder human beings. Although the California legislature’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Caucus requested that the State Bar investigate McLaughlin’s ability to practise law, and a petition signed by thousands asked State Bar President Craig Holden to revoke McLaughlin’s license, the California legislature has no choice but to advance the bill to the signature-gathering stage.
Under California law, the state attorney general… currently, Kamala Harris… has to write a title and summary for the proposal, but has no authority to scrap proposals, regardless of how ridiculous they are. The law was designed so that the Attorney General wouldn’t be able to let their own politics influence which proposals pass through. Sacramento Media consultant Carol Dahmen, who started the petition to disbar McLaughlin, wanted to draw attention to the need to reform the initiative system, which was initially created so that political activists could submit petitions to support causes they believe to be noteworthy. Dahmen went as far as to say, “[McLaughlin] is poster boy of what is still wrong with the initiative process. It’s an interesting discussion about free speech, and I get that, but this is a lawyer, and he’s advocating for murder”. McLaughlin’s next step is to gather 365,880 signatures to advance his proposal to the next ballot… something no one believes will happen.
Political and election attorney Tom Hiltachk wrote in an e-mail to the Sacramento Bee, “While you might say that this initiative is ‘clearly’ illegal (and I’d agree), the notion of what is or is not ‘clearly’ illegal is not always so cut-and-dried. If you give the (Attorney General) discretion, there may be cases in which she refused to issue a title and summary asserting that the measure was ‘clearly’ illegal. While in this case, it seems foolish and perhaps unwise to issue a title and summary, the better approach is the current approach, prohibiting discretion, so that ‘close cases’ are not inappropriately derailed by a recalcitrant AG”.
UC Davis law professor and former criminal defence attorney Vikram Amar presented a similar view, “This one drips of evil, so the instinct is to say ‘Well, there’s got to be a way to avoid wasting everybody’s time’, but in the law we often have limitations that are built not for the easy cases but because we are worried about the hard cases”. Some of the more egregious parts of McLaughlin’s plan include a 1 million USD (59.3 million Roubles. 6.21 million Renminbi. 62.32 million INR. 1.26 million CAD. 1.29 million AUD. 925,000 Euros. 670,000 UK Pounds) fine for transmitting “sodomistic propaganda,” or 10 year imprisonment… or banishment from California for life. The proposed initiative states, “This law is effective immediately and shall not be rendered ineffective nor invalidated by any court, state or federal, until heard by a quorum of the Supreme Court of California consisting only of judges who are neither sodomites nor subject to disqualification hereunder”. There are no obvious proponents of the measure other than McLaughlin himself.
21 March 2015
Sputnik International
http://sputniknews.com/politics/20150321/1019809795.html