Re:Google to close engineering office in Russia
by notahacker on Friday December 12, 2014 @03:34PM
(#8742535)
To be honest, gay rights events in Russia are usually broken up by far-Right mobs physically attacking anyone participating. It's fair to say the police aren't renowned for making concerted efforts to ensure things go peacefully, but they're generally not the ones dishing out the beatings either.
The law in question is pandering to the extreme levels of homophobia prevalent in modern Russian culture, and its justification and theme is loosely based on an actually much more explicitly anti-gay law that existed on the UK statute book not so long ago; our current PM opposed its repeal in 2003 and yet ended up backing gay marriage a decade later. Legislators sometime reflect popular sentiment more as they shape it.
Which doesn't mean it isn't a terrible law, and much more likely to be used to persecute people in Russia than the UK (or indeed Singapore where homosexuality is technically illegal). But some perspective is useful here. From the waves of condemnation emitted from certain sources earlier this year you'd never guess that last Olympic venue where homosexual activity was actually illegal was Atlanta in 1996.
I'd appreciate the campaign to support Russian gay rights much more if I believed much of the media behind it wasn't - for better or worse - really far more interested in Russia's foreign policy. Or that it wouldn't backfire...
The law in question is pandering to the extreme levels of homophobia prevalent in modern Russian culture, and its justification and theme is loosely based on an actually much more explicitly anti-gay law that existed on the UK statute book not so long ago; our current PM opposed its repeal in 2003 and yet ended up backing gay marriage a decade later. Legislators sometime reflect popular sentiment more as they shape it.
Which doesn't mean it isn't a terrible law, and much more likely to be used to persecute people in Russia than the UK (or indeed Singapore where homosexuality is technically illegal). But some perspective is useful here. From the waves of condemnation emitted from certain sources earlier this year you'd never guess that last Olympic venue where homosexual activity was actually illegal was Atlanta in 1996.
I'd appreciate the campaign to support Russian gay rights much more if I believed much of the media behind it wasn't - for better or worse - really far more interested in Russia's foreign policy. Or that it wouldn't backfire...