A half-hour documentary by online magazine vice.com has just
come out on the struggle the LGBT community in Russia is undergoing just trying
to keep their heads above water, to say nothing of achieving some semblance of
civil rights and freedom from bullying and other oppression by thugs and by
state authorities.
What is happening in Russia is a sadly familiar story. A man rises to the top and sets about
consolidating power for the long term.
Putin is an expert at the game.
He knows how to use the tools of manipulation. Long oppressed under communist rule, the
Orthodox Church, Russia’s nationalistic state religious entity, has worked its way
back among the masses. The collapse of
the Soviet empire has also unleashed Russian nationalist sentiment in the public at large, as well. Put the two together and you have a perfect
combination for manipulating Russian hearts and minds. One should never underestimate the readiness
of a people to be manipulated by patriotism and religion. Only one thing is missing to bring that
sentiment to a laser-beam focus and flame insecurities just beneath the surface
– a common enemy. A scapegoat.
Other than an occasional wacko like Russian Orthodox monk
Brother Nathanael, who still pushes the Protocols of the Elders
of Zion, the Russian church is not likely to foster anti-Semitism any more. The Holocaust has inoculated most people
these days against that inclination.
Can’t go for the Jews.
Enter the gays and
lesbians.
Were it not for the upcoming Sochi Olympics, the anti-gay
campaign recently unleashed in Russia might have gone largely unnoticed
internationally. Unfortunately for
Putin’s policy planners, though, homophobia has come to be recognized in the
West as a religion-based bigotry, and in one country after another, it is going
the way of the other bigotries of racism and sexism. Gay rights are now recognized in most modern
countries as civil rights, and have been supported officially by the High Commissioner
for Human Rights at the United Nations since 2011. Putin doesn’t have the free hand he might
have had a decade or two ago.
That doesn’t mean he isn’t trying. Young and
Gay in Putin’s Russia captures a vivid picture of what gay activists in Russia are faced
with. Particularly informative are the
now familiar prejudices of the homophobes.
Whereas advocates of stoning and the like are now at the fringes of society in the West, in Russia under the new laws crazies now have police
protection. Moreover, often it
is the police themselves carrying out beatings and intimidation. One spokesperson claims that in the West
things have gotten so decadent that they are now setting up brothels for sex
with animals.
Chief author of the anti-gay legislation criminalizing gay
behavior in Russia is Vitaly Milonov, a member of the “United Russia” faction
of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg. He is shown near the end of the documentary
in his office under the portrait of the Metropolitan Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church. “In Russia the majority of the people follow
Christianity,” says Milonov, clearly intending that fact as justification for
his political actions. “And according to
all the surveys, 85% or Russians support the law.”
The New York Times reports a different set of figures. They cite a study in which 45% percent of Russians surveyed thought gay men and lesbians should enjoy the same rights as all other
Russians. A slightly smaller number – 41% – declared they should not. (15%
were undecided.)
In an ABC News interview a couple days ago, George Stephanopoulos asked Putin about these laws. Putin shot back with an aggressive
counter-attack, saying, essentially, “Put your own house in order before you
criticize us.” He also attempted to make
a distinction between protesting a law, which he insists is legal, and
advocating homosexuality, which is not.
What the documentary shows is there is no practical way of making that
distinction. Russian police are breaking
their own laws by arresting individual protesters standing alone. They are supposed to be allowed to make their
points without hindrance. One activist
carries a sign that reads “It’s OK to be gay.” His sign is torn up and he is marched away. Apparently if he had said simply laws saying it's not OK to be gay should be changed, he would not be breaking the law. I wouldn't bet on it.
Gay activist and lesbian Masha Gessen expresses concern that under the new laws children could
be taken from their families. The law affects her personally, since she is the mother of a young boy she adopted when he was two years old. Because of
her activism, she knows she could be targeted, and charged with one “administrative
infraction” after another. Once enough
charges have accumulated, the state could step in and declare her an unfit
mother and take her child away. They could do this with biological children, just
as easily, actually. In the interim
between her interview in the documentary and the Stephanopoulos interview, Masha Gessen has left Russia.
Putin may claim all he likes that Russian citizens are free
to express themselves. When gays and
lesbians vote with their feet and emigrate out of fear, his words ring hollow. It’s actually useful to watch the Putin
interview and Young and Gay in Putin’s
Russia back to back. Beating gays
up in the street and subjecting them to the “urine cure” could be dismissed as
the work of thugs. But watching the
police dealing with protestors makes it clear just how hollow are Putin’s
claims and removes any doubt that the international protests against Russia’s
anti-gay laws are justified – if you still needed persuading.
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