Would you support Rainbow on Hockey Unis for Sochi?

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by SebC

So parents have the right to protect their children from harm that may be imaginary by trampling on the rights of LGBT people?

How exactly does this law trample the rights of LGBT people? It is not their right to promote their views to other parents` children, and aside from that, they can do whatever they please.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Pointman

How exactly does this law trample the rights of LGBT people? It is not their right to promote their views to other parents` children, and aside from that, they can do whatever they please.

Freedom of expression is a pretty big freedom to be crushing.

[Devils'Advocate]

Damn straight it is.

Take a gay pride parade. I'm sure that would be seen as contravening the new law. It is meant as a celebration of gay culture and helps GLBT people realize that their sexuality is something to be proud of rather than ashamed of. But such a parade would be construed as "promoting homosexuality", would it not?

They should have the same right to express themselves that everyone else does.

And what is "promoting their views"? What view is being promoted? That being gay is okay? Is that wrong?

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by SebC

Freedom of expression is a pretty big freedom to be crushing.

You are free to express your gayness, until you decide to do it in public school or something. There are several russian artists, who are openly gays, and there are songs like Lesbi hymn out there.

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

Damn straight it is.

Take a gay pride parade. I'm sure that would be seen as contravening the new law. It is meant as a celebration of gay culture and helps GLBT people realize that their sexuality is something to be proud of rather than ashamed of. But such a parade would be construed as "promoting homosexuality", would it not?

They should have the same right to express themselves that everyone else does.

And what is "promoting their views"? What view is being promoted? That being gay is okay? Is that wrong?

Showing off that you are proud to be gay is like showing off that you are proud to be white. I'm sure if whites of Canada would ask for a White People Pride parade to celebrate that they happened to be born white and they are enjoying being white, they would be denied. Same with gay parades.

[Pointman]

Then there's one more question that you will definitely face if you do those patches:

WHY RUSSIA?

You can argue till you are blue in your face, that this law violates human rights, but there are many countries where you will be senteced to death for the mere fact that you are gay. How comes you ignore death penalty for homosexuality in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Mauritania and other countries? Why are you up in arms to save Russian LGBT from $150 fine yet you do nothing to save arabian gays from death? Russia may be the host of the next Olympics, but what exactly prevents you from wearing anti-Arabia patches in Russia? Olympics are broadcasted globally and even if you wear anti-Russian patches in Russia, 99% of Russians will only see them on TV anyway. Aside from obvious yet right questions such as "How many people died of hunger while you were preparing rainbow patches" and "How many medicines for dying children you could buy with cash you spent on this campaign", there are even stronger ones. Even if you somehow happen to think that LGBT rights are more important than world poverty and cancer, how on earth are you going to convince people that $150 fine is more evil, than death sentence? You are now hell bent to prove that it violates human rights, while being ignorant and blind to screaming violations of human rights, including LGBT rights, in other countries. Isn't it because you are a bit biased against Russia? Or could it be that corporations are afraid to lose Russian gay market? I mean, if you save gay from death sentence in some african jungle, he will not come to spend money on local gay clubs and gay porn. Such a strange selectiveness will make people question your underlying motives.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Pointman

You are free to express your gayness, until you decide to do it in public school or something. There are several russian artists, who are openly gays, and there are songs like Lesbi hymn out there.

Just so we're clear, it's not my gayness.

Originally Posted by Pointman

Showing off that you are proud to be gay is like showing off that you are proud to be white. I'm sure if whites of Canada would ask for a White People Pride parade to celebrate that they happened to be born white and they are enjoying being white, they would be denied.

If white oppression was a thing, sure. Maybe in Zimbabwe. Gay pride isn't "gay superiority" the way "white pride" tends to be.

[SebC]

It makes sense for advocates to focus on Russia while the world is focused on Russia. That's why.

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by SebC

Just so we're clear, its not my gayness.

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that you are gay. And we all are Flames fans and most of us have been here for years, let's not let this debate get into it. It's just off-season off-topic debate.

Originally Posted by SebC

If white oppression was a thing, sure. Maybe in Zimbabwe. Gay pride isn't "gay superiority" the way "white pride" tends to be.

But this is inequity!
How comes minorities can celebrate and I can not?
I don't care what happened 50 years ago, I didn't even live then and have nothing to do with it.

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by SebC

It makes sense for advocates to focus on Russia while the world is focused on Russia. That's why.

So you just use it as an opportunity to pile on Russia? It doesn't bother you that in other countries children are dying on hunger, there are screaming violations of human rights and death penalties for being gay? The point of this whole thing is just to give country you hate some heat?

Why don't you use Olympics to wear anti-Arabian patches (whole world will see it)? Why don't you demand that Arabian athletes should be banned from Olympics?

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Pointman

But this is inequity!
How comes minorities can celebrate and I can not?
I don't care what happened 50 years ago, I didn't even live then and have nothing to do with it.

You can celebrate, as long is you do it in a way that's not discriminatory or hateful. Pride, as in 'gay pride' is meant to convey the absence of shame. 'White pride' tends to be a euphemism for 'white superiority', but it doesn't have to be.

A KKK rally is probably going to involve hate speech, Ukrainian day or whatever, not so much.

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by SebC

You can celebrate, as long is you do it in a way that's not discriminatory or hateful. Pride, as in 'gay pride' is meant to convey the absence of shame. 'White pride' tends to be a euphemism for 'white superiority', but it doesn't have to be.

A KKK rally is probably going to involve hate speech, Ukrainian day or whatever, not so much.

Fair enough. In Russia you can not do gay parade. You can not do hetero parade either. Both are considered to be propaganda of superiority.

[Devils'Advocate]

It's not superiority AT ALL.

Again, how many teens kill themselves because they are ashamed of being gay?

And how many teens kill themselves because they are ashamed of being white? Or heterosexual?

There *NEEDS* to be public displays of acceptance so that gay people understand that they are welcome in our society and they need not be ashamed of who they are attracted to.

There has been no historical shaming of heterosexuality, so kids are not calling into suicide hot lines saying they are contemplating killing themselves because they are heterosexual. There is no need for a heterosexual pride parade because that is already considered the norm. There does need to be a gay pride parade, PARTICULARLY in countries where there is still strong homophobic tendencies, so that gays there can feel normal as well.

[strombad]

I think it's clear that Pointman's views, while easily expressed, are not easily or clearly understood as it flies in the face of what most 1st world countries believe. I don't believe that any amount of us putting it clearly is going to make him see that "Oh! This IS wrong!" as it so clearly is to any logic driven individual, so instead, I propose we think of actual solutions.

And by god, I think I found it:

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by Pointman

Showing off that you are proud to be gay is like showing off that you are proud to be white. I'm sure if whites of Canada would ask for a White People Pride parade to celebrate that they happened to be born white and they are enjoying being white, they would be denied. Same with gay parades.

This is patently false.

There have been several occurrences of the very thing, and they have never been denied the right to march and have in fact been protected by police from hostility and physical confrontation coming from groups dubbed as "anti-racism" groups.

Why is it not only allowed, but the police actively protect the participants? Because they have the right to say what they want, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Link 1

Link 2


Now, ultimately, such parades are a failure in contrast to events Gay Pride, or say Carifest (celebration of Caribbean culture) because of the low turnout and that inevitably the demonstrations tend to be less about why it is so great to be white, and more about how everyone else ought not to be proud about who they are, be it black, Indian, gay, or handicapped. They are allowed to happen, but the vast majority, if anything, simply scoffs at this message or ignores it completely.

This is the way it should be. The white pride parade participants should be free to put forth their message (so long as they don't instigate physical violence), and the rest of us can (also non-violently) judge it on its merits. Historically, this has resulted in 0.00001% of the population being convinced that their message has merit and they will join the parade the next year, another 0.001% of the population actively participates in a counter-demonstration and the rest of us simply dismiss the whole thing and carry on with our lives.

Another thing - there is no straight pride parade so far as I'm aware, but that doesn't mean there can't be, or that it would be against the law. It's just that no straight people has thought to gather a group of people and do it. That old chestnut is one of my favourite "arguments" coming from homophobes when speaking to the existence of Gay Pride events. They will say

"Why isn't there a straight pride parade?"

or

"If there isn't a straight pride parade, there shouldn't be a gay pride parade"

These arguments are trotted out all the time, just look at newspaper comments sections (if you dare) on stories covering stories related to gay pride events. I've even had those very words spoken to me by various acquaintances or co-workers over the years. It's like it's an extremely rare sentiment. The thing is, no one but themselves are stopping them from creating such an event, and why do they think that gays ever had to wait for some arbitrary other group of people to have such an event before they went ahead with theirs? Actually, to me it's very telling that, despite there existing enough people who take these arguments to heart, they haven't created a "straight pride parade," if for no other reason than to simply mock the existence of gay pride parades. Seems there's no great demand within society for one.

All of this discussion is very timely, by the way. Calgary's annual Pride parade commences in a couple hours. September 1st at noon.

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by Pointman

You are free to express your gayness, until you decide to do it in public school or something. There are several russian artists, who are openly gays, and there are songs like Lesbi hymn out there.

Proof:

http://demov.net/text/6963402.html

It is lesbian anthem, as you can see from the title. All adjectives in the song are female, it gets lost in translation because in english there are no male and female adjectives. This song is not banned, you can sing it in karaoke and everywhere except for school concerts.

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

Again, how many teens kill themselves because they are ashamed of being gay?

Good question. Can you actually answer it?

And for the matter, I understand what you are saying here. Gay teens feel bullied, they commit suicides, so society needs to be something, let's say gay parade, to let them know that they are welcome and all. Even though I couldn't find any data about russian gay teens suicides. I hear you nonetheless.

Still questions remains:

1. Under russian laws, if you bullied another person into suicide, you go to jail. Even if suicide attempt fail and the teen is still alive. This law applies from the age of 16. Maybe we should change it to 14 to help the issue, as serious crimes, such as murder and rape apply at 14. This law PARTICULARLY singles out "bullying" as one of the reasons of suicide that will get you into jail. I dunno about american laws, but if you have such law and actually apply it, maybe it will help things out?

2. Why are you trying so hard to sell it as violation of human rights? I realize, that you need to raise awareness and all but if you cry a violation of human rights where there isn't one it will not make you any better. Why don't you sell it for what it is — a campaign against teen suicide? Don't you understand that if you tell russians, that they are violating human rights, they will tell you to **** off. However, if you tell them that they need to do something about teens suicide, you are far more likely to get a positive response? If you care about gay teens, which is better approach to convince russians to do something about it? Just because gay parades could possibly help gay teens, it doesn't make it their human right. Specially considering that hetero teens, who bullied them into suicide should go to jail. If there is a problem here, we need to focus on making this law work better insread of doing things like gay parades. When I was a teen, I was bullied because of my jewish last name classmates and teachers considered me jewish. I really was harassed because of it, albeit not into suicide. If there would be some sort of jewish parade, I would feel better, but it doesn't mean that it is my human right to demand such. If I was bullied into suicide, my parents would demand teachers and 16+ old classmates to go to jail and they would get it.

3. Why are you going for LGBT issues? Why don't you campaign against drunk driving or something? Drunk driving takes away way more lives, than teen bullying. And there are many other issues in the world, why don't you suggest to wear red cross patches, unicef patches or something?

4. Still — why Russia? Whatever you think of this law, it is obvious, that Russia is far from the worst anti-gay country in the world. You may argue that Russia is going "wrong direction" yet you do nothing against countries that are far further in that direction. I realize, that Olympics are in Russia, but nonetheless this issue is not the biggest issue in the world, not the biggest LGBT issue, and not the biggest Russian issue. It's really strange to use Olympics to protest over $150 fines law, which violations of human rights are very very debatable, specially considering death penalties for being gays in some other countries.

[strombad]

Originally Posted by Pointman

Good question. Can you actually answer it?

Still questions remains:

1. Under russian laws, if you bullied another person into suicide, you go to jail. This law applies from the age of 14. I dunno about american laws, but if you have such law and actually apply it, maybe it will help things out?

2. Why are you trying so hard to sell it as violation of human rights?

3. Why are you going for LGBT issues? Why don't you campaign against drunk driving or something? Drunk driving takes away way more lives, than teen bullying. And there are many other issues in the world, why don't you suggest to wear red cross patches, unicef patches or something?

4. Still — why Russia? Whatever you think of this law, it is obvious, that Russia is far from the worst anti-gay country in the world.... I realize, that Olympics are in Russia.

http://www.sprc.org/sites/sprc.org/f...LGBT_Youth.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2072932/
http://actionallianceforsuicidepreve...icide.html?m=1

^^^^^for your suicide references

1. So you agree that abuse of a homosexual should be heavily punished. Great.

2. Because Freedom of Expression is a Human Right, and this violates that. It's not a complicated concept you need to understand.

3. Every issue needs attention, and creating the argumentative fallacy of "x is questionable because you don't care about y" is without logic. Do you like hockey? Obviously, but you don't like every sport, so you shouldn't be cheering for hockey (see how dumb that sounds?)

4. You literally answered your own question within a couple sentences, congrats.


Here is an interesting article for some pro-gay rights people here. It includes a link which paints a very different, but very real picture than the one Pointman is attempting to paint. Don't be fooled, while this law in Russia may seem insignificant on paper, it is encouraging homophobia and attacks on homosexuals. Be warned, graphic stuff.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/ja...nter-olympics/

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by strombad

http://www.sprc.org/sites/sprc.org/f...LGBT_Youth.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2072932/
http://actionallianceforsuicidepreve...icide.html?m=1

^^^^^for your suicide references

I wanted some data about gay suicides in Russia.

Originally Posted by strombad

2. Because Freedom of Expression is a Human Right, and this violates that.

We are going in circles. You can express your gayness. So this law doesn't violate it. I posted a link of lesbian anthem on this very page. If you REALLY want to help gay teens in Russia you REALLY need to drop this "human rights violation" argument and go for "let's protect teens" argument to get any fruitful results.

Originally Posted by strombad

3. Every issue needs attention, and creating the argumentative fallacy of "x is questionable because you don't care about y" is without logic. Do you like hockey? Obviously, but you don't like every sport, so you shouldn't be cheering for hockey (see how dumb that sounds?)

By this logic, can Russian players wear patches against inequity and violation of human rights in USA constitution? Every issue needs attention.

Originally Posted by strombad

Here is an interesting article for some pro-gay rights people here. It includes a link which paints a very different, but very real picture than the one Pointman is attempting to paint. Don't be fooled, while this law in Russia may seem insignificant on paper, it is encouraging homophobia and attacks on homosexuals. Be warned, graphic stuff.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/ja...nter-olympics/

It doesn't have any proof on anything and the line

"Any defence or sane discussion of homosexuality is against the law"

Is simply false. You can visit sites like www.gay.ru and www.lgbtnet.ru to have sane discussion of homosexuality. You can also visit one of several gay clubs in Moscow (I gave the map of it some pages ago) to discuss it. This article is full of hate and lie. If you judge about russian LGBT situation by such articles, there's no wonder we can't understand each other.

EDIT: And Occupie pedofilay is not anti-gay group, they are anti-pedofilya group, as you can see by the name. They operate in small russian cities as well, as in neighbourhood countries. They "date" pedofiles in the internet, catch them in the "date" place and torture them. They are scum, of course. They should be killed. I still don't understand what on earth it has to do with this law and LGBT rights unless pedofiles are somehow LGBT now? Or do you somehow believe that what you see in that link is within the law in Russia? Article claims that "their true agenda is to associate pedofilia with gayness", but makes no argument, nevermind proof, for this claim. Since Russia apparantly hates gays, why anti-gay group would disguise that they are killing gays?

How about me doing vidoes of London riot, Paris riot, or Stockholm riot? Or Vancouver riot for that matter? What is has to do with this law, Olympics and human rights?

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by strombad

Here is an interesting article for some pro-gay rights people here. It includes a link which paints a very different, but very real picture than the one Pointman is attempting to paint. Don't be fooled

I posted:

1. Link to the actual text of law
2. Link to the map of gay clubs in Moscow
3. Links to russian gay sites/communities
4. Few links to russian news sites
5. Link to Perfilova's interview
6. Link to russian song about lesbian love
7. Link to the law that says that you go to jail if you bullied someone into suicide or even suicide attempt.

And the last, but not the least:

8. A link to Sergey Guriev interview, a man who fleed Russia because he was afraid of Putin's attempts to arrest him. He's piling on Putin and Russia in whole interview, yet he says, that western media are drawing a horrific and scary picture of Russia, which is way worse than reality is.


Which of those was or at least could be "lie", attempt to "paint a picture" or "fool" anyone? Do you think, that I draw moscow gay clubs map in photoshop or something? Alright, here's english-language info about Moscow gay clubs from international (immune to Putin propaganda) site. It also mentions two gay beaches. Unlike you, I didn't post any opinionated articles (except for Perfilova's interview, because people asked me about why Russians support it). Everything I posted was pretty factual info. Unlike your link, that takes videos of nazi anti-pedophiles scum and trying to sell it as anti-gay, which it is not.