First post
Welding the closet doors shut
Tue, 2016-01-12 13:16
#1
bagkitty
Welding the closet doors shut
Tue, 2016-01-12 13:21
#2
bagkitty
Looks like the chuckle heads in the Duma are up to no good, again. They will be voting on a bill to make coming out and/or public displays of affection between two men subject to fines and a 15 day jail sentence. On the plus side, revealing themselves to be the deluded Victorians we always thought they were, the ban on PDAs apply to men only:
Any public displays of affection among gay men will result in jail time and a fine of 5,000 rubles ($80, €60).
The proposed bill is only targeting gay men as women, according to the lawmakers, are more ‘reasonable’ and can ‘manage their emotions’.
Tue, 2016-01-12 13:22
#3
Just so we don't lock anyone in that closet!
Perhaps we could - metaphorically as well as physically - use the old closet for some other purpose, such as storage? Thinking as a historian, of the need to preserve the memory of how people dealt with systemic discrimination and denial of their identity, and of the great many LGBTQ people who must still do that - and no, not just in the "Muslim World" - think of cultures not far away, such as some in the Caribbean...
Tue, 2016-01-12 13:43
#4
Oh Russia, yeah... Their Royal family was related to Vicky's... But the denial of lesbianism is odd. Is anyone fighting this homophobic idiocy?
Tue, 2016-01-12 15:07
#5
bagkitty
[tongue firmly in cheek]
What, have you no respect for the rule of law lagatta? To object is to violate the "gay propaganda" law! Remember:
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
Tue, 2016-01-12 15:56
#6
But the denial of lesbianism is odd.
Not surprising actually - these patriarchal systems are all about a cult of hyper-masculinity, and don't take women seriously. If they did take women seriously they'd have to admit it isn't a case of not meeting a man enough man. Or in this case the line about women being able to control themselves, and the assumption that men don't have to (or that it is a more serious outrage).
As for the fact that straights don't have any monopoly on masculinity, hyper or otherwise, I'd say these totalitarian-minded fellows are doing their best to not think too hard about that connection either.
But from the contining clampdown on this (and using homophobic slurs in commentary against European culture generally) , to banning swearwords in art, one can only guess how far they are going to go with this.
Tue, 2016-01-12 16:51
#7
Russophobia!
Tue, 2016-01-12 17:17
#8
bagkitty
Russophobia!
I think that is a misdiagnosis lagatta... it is more of a Sovietphobia. (Is this the point where I drop in the cliche about apples falling?) It might even be a WarsawPactPhobia (if things continue to go along the path they are taking in Poland).
Tue, 2016-01-12 17:36
#9
You mean the Polish obsession with Gay Vegetarian Cyclists?
Tue, 2016-01-12 17:37
#10
swallow
Isn't it enough that [url=http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/12/21/russia-will-not-ban-gay-emojis-on-s... emojis are legal on Russian iphones?[/url]
Tue, 2016-01-12 17:51
#11
It is not only Russians that are homophobic.
While the situation in Russia is dire, it's hardly the only place to have instituted a law banning "gay propaganda." In fact, as a map from the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network illustrates, eight U.S. states — Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Utah — have laws banning the promotion of homosexuality in schools.
http://mic.com/articles/81437/8-u-s-states-have-anti-gay-laws-strikingly...
Leung does not define what might count as controversial, but in June 2011, she described the passage of Burnaby’s anti-homophobia policy as “the darkest day of the Burnaby School Board history.”
“It is an irresponsible act to pass this policy,” she told Xtra at the time. “Administration, regulation and strategy in this policy — it opens a big window for the pro-gay community to recruit, recruit, recruit our children into their camp. In the meantime, they ignore the health risks behind it and the medical-expense burden in this country.”
http://www.dailyxtra.com/vancouver/news-and-ideas/news/burnaby-first-coa...
Tue, 2016-01-12 17:54
#12
Absolutely. Russia has no monopoly on this by any means, and there are definitely similar laws in parts of the US. Other nearby places with very stark homophobia include certain Caribbean nations.
Tue, 2016-01-12 20:20
#13
bagkitty
Absolutely. Russia has no monopoly on this by any means, and there are definitely similar laws in parts of the US. Other nearby places with very stark homophobia include certain Caribbean nations.
Although they may have entered brand new territory with this proposed bill... they are the first nation, to my knowledge, to propose a law that penalizes people for the act of coming out -- if I was feeling generous I might point out this is less dranconian than the laws that punish (up to and including capital punishment) for acting out... but I am not feeling particularly generous today.
I would also quibble with your saying there are similar laws in parts of the Excited States... there it is a matter of having no recourse when one is discriminated against for having coming out as opposed to a state entity criminalizing the coming out itself.
Mon, 2016-01-18 13:07
#14
bagkitty
Update: the proposed bill was rejected by a Duma committee earlier today.
Mon, 2016-01-18 16:21
#15
swallow
Yay!
The bill, initiated by lawmakers from the Communist Party...
Oh dear.
Mon, 2016-01-18 17:35
#16
Isn't it the far RIGHT who are supposed to be the bigots?
Mon, 2016-01-18 18:19
#17
Isn't it the far RIGHT who are supposed to be the bigots?
There are Communists who've always been against what they see as "Western decadence"
Mon, 2016-01-18 19:39
#18
I suppose it's a given that they might be opposed to anything "western", but it's not clear why two men (or two women) having sex or falling in love is "decadent".
I know that you're not making that argument. I'm just thinking that calling homosexuality "western decadence" necessarily starts with the idea that it's decadence, then traces it back to the obvious source after that.
Tue, 2016-01-19 13:22
#19
bagkitty
@bekayne: I think you will find that the assorted Marxist parties traditionally used the expression "bourgeois decadence" rather than "western decadence". At least that is my memory of the terminology thrown at me by members of the WCP and CPC(ML) when I was involved in student politics in the early 80s.
Tue, 2016-01-19 13:46
#20
There is also the more crass motive of any sidelined party moving in the direction where it thinks it can best score points. And doing the favour of floating trial balloons for Mr. Putin helps too.
Tue, 2016-01-19 20:07
#21
There is also the more crass motive of any sidelined party moving in the direction where it thinks it can best score points. And doing the favour of floating trial balloons for Mr. Putin helps too.
Why would the Communist Party be doing anything to help Putin and the United Russia party? Putin's party is a big tent party whose main oppostion is the Communist party. This post tells me you haven't even done a google search of the current makeup of the Federal Assembly.
Tue, 2016-01-19 23:39
#22
I don't know kropotkin. Why would Thomas Mulcair campaign on a balanced budget platform if it wasn't that he was trying to out-conservative the conservatives?
To repeat: this is what sidelined parties often do when they think they have to score points...
...against their competition.
Wed, 2016-01-20 13:51
#23
I don't know kropotkin. Why would Thomas Mulcair campaign on a balanced budget platform if it wasn't that he was trying to out-conservative the conservatives?
To repeat: this is what sidelined parties often do when they think they have to score points...
...against their competition.
I guess the balanced budget meme that Tom was floating was a trial balloon for Harper because that is what sidelined parties, do float trial balloons for their opponents.
Why do you think Tom was floating trtial balloons for the Conservatives?
Wed, 2016-01-20 14:15
#24
I didn't say that.
I suggested that the NDP moved to the right on that issue because they felt they had to compete with the conservatives, who were already campaigning on balancing the budget.
A trial balloon is a new policy which is put out there to see how it will be received, and that aspect of this is something different. How it could work to Putin's advantage is that some people will look at the rejection and assume it means he isn't such a bad guy because he doesn't hit them every time he has the opportunity.
Wed, 2016-01-20 14:44
#25
LMAOROF
Here this tool might help you.
"And doing the favour of floating trial balloons for Mr. Putin helps too."
Wed, 2016-01-20 14:59
#26
I am serious, k.
There are plenty of examples of nasty leaders getting good PR simply because they DON'T do something bad, even when they have a well-established track record, as Putin has when it comes to LGBT rights.
And in case there is a question as to whether I can read, I do know this decision was made at the committee level, and the reason given was that it did not make legal sense. In the first place, I doubt this is something which escaped his attention, and in the second place, he is going to get mileage out of it one way or another.
Wed, 2016-01-20 15:12
#27
"And doing the favour of floating trial balloons for Mr. Putin helps too."
That is what you posted. The Communist Party does not float trial balloons to do a favour on behalf of the United Russia party. That is my point. Why can't you ever just admit that sometimes you have posted something that is not right and move on.
Wed, 2016-01-20 15:27
#28
Look, k. If I need to point out the symbiotic relationship between Putin and the communist party aside from them both supporting a Greater Russia, he is their best hope for salvaging their legacy (including stalin, and their poor, persecuted statues).
Consider this moved on, but I'll leave it up to the rest of the room to decide if my point holds water.
Wed, 2016-01-20 16:40
#29
Look, k. If I need to point out the symbiotic relationship between Putin and the communist party aside from them both supporting a Greater Russia, he is their best hope for salvaging their legacy (including stalin, and their poor, persecuted statues).
Consider this moved on, but I'll leave it up to the rest of the room to decide if my point holds water
The Communist Party is also under Putin's control. If you say so it must be true.
Fri, 2016-02-05 14:33
#30
bagkitty
Sometimes it is hard to actually figure out what you are laughing at. The following story is being report in The Guardian.
Russian lawyer accuses unlikely animal chums of 'gay propaganda'
Amur the tiger was meant to eat Timur the goat, but now they’re firm friends a lawyer has said coverage of their relationship promotes an LGBT lifestyle
Russian prosecutors have begun considering whether media coverage of the unexpected friendship between a male tiger and goat at a safari park in the country’s far east counts as gay propaganda.
Novosibirsk lawyer Alexei Krestyanov complained to the prosecutor general last month that information about the animals living together could harm children by provoking “interest in non-traditional sexual relations”.
“I think the positive coverage of this topic is nothing less than interference in the personal lives of minors, which is what hidden propaganda is, and public, active imposition of homosexuality,” Krestyanov wrote. [...]
Perhaps it is just me, but the story immediately brings to mind the wing-nut homophobe reaction to "And Tango Makes Three" (for those who forget, or didn't notice, that was the children's book that told the [true] story of Roy and Milo - two male black chinstrap penguins at New York's Central Park Zoo who bonded, where given a viable egg to hatch, and raised the chick Tango). Of course the whole Adam and Steve crowd (and by extension, the whole Adam and Ivan crowd) go into meltdown mode at any evidence of same sex bonding or activity by our furred or feathered friends...
[...]Timur’s [the goat] fans have even begun a campaign to elect him to parliament, arguing that he would be braver and more honest than current MPs.