Via Queer Nation New York, this ad that should get a wider audience than it will — in Russia and here:
[via]
I’d like to teach the world, indeed.
Over to you.
Reader Interactions
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”
This really is a full service blog.
Bark louder, little dog.
Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.
Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?
Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.
You cannot shame the shameless.
They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.
No one could have predicted…
Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.
Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.
The worst democrat is better than the best republican.
The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.
American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated
You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.
It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.
Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.
Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard
You can’t love your country only when you win.
Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.
Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.
Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.
Impressively dumb. Congratulations.
Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.
You are here: Home / Civil Rights / LGBTQ Rights / Gay Rights are Human Rights / Annals Of An Alternate World: Sochi/Capitalism Edition
Tommy
The publication Vice has an HBO show now. They did a story last year, where gay men in Russia are meeting people in classified ads online. But the people looking to meet them are not gay and they end up getting beat to within an inch of their lives. These folks film it and post it online. I am sure you could find the videos if you want, but it is horrifying stuff.
I don’t normally throw out the word Nazi. Overused IMHO. But I wondered if that might have been what it was like to be a Jew back in Hilter’s rule.
opiejeanne
Thanks for posting this. These people you see getting arrested in this little ad, it’s heart-breaking to watch. I haven’t been able to watch the terrible videos of the mistreatment of homosexuals in Russia, haven’t got the stomach for it.
WaterGirl
I admire the bravery of anyone who protests anything in a country like Russia, but seeing this breaks my heart.
I can’t get over the feeling that having the olympics in Russia will not end well.
Tommy
@WaterGirl:
Much braver people then myself. It might feel good to say I’d protest, but honestly I’d be scared to death.
WaterGirl
@Tommy: Sad to say, but I don’t think I would have the courage.
Tommy
@WaterGirl: I agree very sad and I don’t think I would either. Maybe the only thing that would make me is this:
It is something I think about a lot. I mean I am an upper middle class straight white male. Generally speaking nobody is coming to take away anything from me. I try to think that if I was maybe gay. Or a women. Or this or that people would speak out and for me. So I try.
But again in Russia, not so sure I would. They will send you to a forced labor camp, ask the two ladies from P Riot. Heck the Green Peace staff only barely got out of ten years in jail, really I think for a PR stunt prior to the Olympics.
eric
@WaterGirl: if i might say: most of us would not, now. But deprive you of your rights beat and kill your friends and you might feel the existential threat more profoundly. I am with you, but think that many of us would morph under such horrors.
geg6
@Tommy:
I agree with you about the Greenpeace people and PRiot only got let out, not as a stunt, but due to the pressure being put on him. Did you watch the HBO doc about PRiot? Really good film. These women are very brave.
Pogonip
I see no reason to patronize the Russian Olympics when the entire eastern US is having our own winter Olympics. You can go to snowplow races, sidewalk ice skating, weight lifting with snow shovels, you name it. The Olympic torch is being carried from house to house, being used to melt frozen pipes. Gays are welcome; anyone willing to join the snow-shoveling team is welcome. Who needs those Russian snobs? We got yer winter Olympics right here!
gogol's wife
@Pogonip:
Sad but true. LOL
WaterGirl
@eric: I used to be certain that if I had been alive while the nazis were persecuting the jews that I would have worked to try to stop it, or to try to help in some way. Now I hope that it would be true. When I look at the Pussy Riot women who came out of forced labor imprisonment and see them openly defiant, still, I am in awe.
Howard Beale IV
What’s sad is that we have a non-trivial amount of people in this country who see no problem with enforcing Russian-style anti-gay laws on our own citizens if they get the power.
Pogonip
My team should have won the Silver in Windshield Clearing, but them rich bastards in the next burb over cheated with fancy heated scrapers. Biggest sport scandal since the Black Sox, if you ask me.
Tommy
@geg6: Yes I did. Very brave women. When I first heard of the story I assumed they might have done something in that church. I don’t know urinated on the alter or something over-the-top. Then I saw the video of what they did and I was like, that is it?
Somebody here last night that knows a lot more about Russia then myself talked about the power the Orthodox Church now has within the government, and I asked for more details and didn’t get any. It would seem to me, from the outside looking in, that that influence might mater a lot and we need to understand it.
patrick II
People who live in such a dangerous environment for gays and still are compelled to pursue their identity give lie to the assertion that being gay is a matter of choice. No one would choose such a heartbreaking life if not compelled to.
Pogonip
Is John OK? I am concerned that he wasn’t exaggerating for comic effect, that Steve really nailed him and he’s now sick. Cat bites are no joke. Could he please check in?
TG Chicago
@Tom Levenson: Maybe I’m dense, but when I saw your post, I thought this was possibly a legit ad put out by Coke. I wonder if you should make it clear that this is Queer Nation’s remix.
schrodinger's cat
@Tommy: I have a Russian friend whose brother has been protesting against Putin since the last rigged election which put Putin back in power. He has a job with the government and has 4 kids. Truly brave. He says he is doing it for his children so that they can live in a better Russia.
Tommy
@schrodinger’s cat: I like to tell stories. I got a few of them. I was in grad school in 1991. We had a group of journalist from Russia come to our school to learn, well about journalism. I was the president of the grad school association and it fell to me to plan their visit.
One of the guys was a former military official (worked on a sub) that wrote for Pravda.
When he found out my father worked for the US military we talked for hours. He said you know we didn’t really want to kill you Americans? I was like we didn’t want to kill you either.
It was such a hopeful conversation. To find we were not that different. That maybe we could get along. I don’t know what happened but it seems we can’t get along so well now.
Clearly I find that sad on many different levels.
gbear
What’s happening in Russia is bad (I’ve tried to watch some of those ambush videos but I can’t), and Russia’s discrimination is in the spotlight due to the olympics, but what’s happening in Nigeria makes Russia look like a picnic. Gay people are being arrested simply for being gay, and it won’t be long until someone is sentenced by the courts to be stoned to death.Haters there are lining up to throw the first stones. US Christianists are helping them to write the kill-the-gay laws they wish could get passed in the US.
Click on the ‘Nigeria’ link at the end of the article I linked to.
Ben Franklin
@schrodinger’s cat:
To me that’s gut-level courage. My biggest problem would be thinking too much about what could happen. I think Russian/Soviet life must have been tortuous even for those considered well-off. We don’t really know what hardship is, in the U.S.
Tom levenson
@TG Chicago: away from home, so can’t edit the post easily. But I’ll say here: this is a remix as much a testimony aimed at corporate enablers of the Sochi Olympics as it is at Russia itself.
Kropadope
@Howard Beale IV:
Oh, would those be the same people who think Obama is abusing government power to punish straight white conservatives?
Smiling Mortician
OT, but did you all see Chris Hayes’ righteous rant last night about what income inequality actually means? It’s a thing of beauty.
shelly
When did this happen?
raven
@shelly: When he shaved the cat’s ass the other night.
Roger Moore
@Kropadope:
Got it in one. Not letting them enact their bigotry into law is oppression.
Kropadope
@Roger Moore: Oh, forgot to use scare quotes to note the falseness of their conservatism. I didn’t know their claims that passing gay marriage into law would lead to the destruction of traditional marriage weren’t unfounded predictions, but rather threats.
Cacti
@gbear:
And doing it with the praise of the Catholic Archbishops of Jos and Abuja. One of whom was made a Cardinal by the new “liberal” pope back in 2012.
Tokyokie
@Smiling Mortician: It would have been better had it not been preceded by a promo for NBC’s Olympics coverage.
Pogonip
@shelly: When he tried to shave Steve’s aft end. But he’s well enough to cook, so must be OK.
Smiling Mortician
@Tokyokie: I didn’t see that. Yeah, that puts it in a different light.
divF
@Cacti:
Since Francis was elected to the Papacy in March 2013, he did not promote a cardinal in 2012.
Bitter and Deluded Lurker
@Cacti: While I’m still pretty cynical about the new guy, he wasn’t pope until March 2013.
Cacti
@Bitter and Deluded Lurker:
You’re right. He got his Cardinal’s hat from Bennie.
Frank made him Apostolic Administrator for the Diocese of Ahaira.
ETA: Also appointed him to the Presidential Committee of the Pontifical Council for the Family.
chopper
@gbear:
I can’t watch those ambush videos. it’s as if the KKK 60-some odd-years ago had YouTube.
Pogonip
@chopper: I can’t watch ANY videos tonight, they keep getting stuck for some reason. I think the Intertubes are freezing.
Hawes
In the US, LGBT Americans can say they only want to be treated like everyone else.
The sad thing about LGBT Russians, is that they kind of are being treated like most other Russians who disagree with the regime publicly.
John Weiss
@Ben Franklin: “We don’t really know what hardship is, in the U.S.” Baloney. I remind you of the folk under the bridges.