Majory of Rsians believe gays nspirg to stroy untry's valu, poll fds

Contents:

• 'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY
• RSIA TO GAYS: SHUT UP AND DISAPPEAR
• MAJORY OF RSIANS BELIEVE GAYS NSPIRG TO STROY UNTRY'S VALU, POLL FDS
• GAY RSIA
• ‘I’M AAID FOR MY FUTURE’: PROPOSED LAWS THREATEN GAY LIFE RSIA
• 1 5 RSIANS WANT GAYS AND LBIANS 'ELIMATED,' SURVEY FDS

'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY

As Rsia ntu to flounr Ukrae, wh attempts to pture the small town of Bakhmut turng to a grisly reenactment of the Battle of Verdun, and Kreml propagandists lurchg back and forth between hysteril swagger and the five stag of grief, the Rsian polil tablishment has cid to tackle what’s really important: a natnal “Don’t Say Gay” law. A bill that outlaws “LGBT propaganda”—fed so broadly as to ver not only gay or transgenr rights advocy but potentially all public exprsns of “nontradnal” sexualy or genr inty—passed the State Duma on November 24 and was approved by the upper hoe of Rsia’s fake legislature, the Council of Feratns, last Wednday.

RSIA TO GAYS: SHUT UP AND DISAPPEAR

” (Thk of as the Really Don’t Say Gay Law. ) But do rell Soviet-era censorship unr which any mentn of Tchaikovsky’s homosexualy was scbbed om books and films about the great poser’s life, while bgraphil prefac to Soviet edns of Osr Wil cloaked the reason for his imprisonment such phemisms as “transgrsns agast moraly. ” Ocsnally, foreign books wh gay characters, such as Iris Murdoch’s 1973 novel The Black Prce, slipped past the censor’s vigilant eye.

But there uld have been no qutn, for stance, of publishg Jam Baldw’s gay-themed masterpiece Gvanni’s Room, even though Baldw was acclaimed the official Soviet media as a fighter agast Amerin racism; the novel had to wa until 2007 for s first Rsian edn. This is not the first time Put-era Rsian legislatn has gone after “gay propaganda”: A more limed 2013 law add “propaganda of non-tradnal sexual relatns” to a broar law that banned the distributn of “harmful” material to mors. The Duma voted down an amendment that would have exempted “universally regnized cultural products” such as lerature and art om the ban; theory, this means, for example, that Rsian translatns of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Pale Fire, whose prcipal narrator Charl Kbote is nspicuoly gay, uld fall unr the ax.

Jt last month, the premiere of a play lled The Prcs and the Ogre at a children’s theater Novosibirsk was nceled—or at least layed, sce will apparently open this month after vettg by the Mistry of Culture—bee of an anonymo plat om someone who found too gay. Many Rsian mentators, such as journalist and activist Renat Davletgilyev, believe the new law is a transparent attempt by the Put regime to shore up flaggg support among the Rsian public by appealg to homophobia, stg gays as the menacg “other, ” and monizg not only the Wt but Rsian antiwar liberals as “sexual viants. A report by journalist Sasha Belaya on the Khodorkovsky Live YouTube channel noted that the Duma’s discsn and passage of the legislatn had been acpanied by an anti-gay mpaign the Rsian state media that explicly targeted liberals and dissints.

MAJORY OF RSIANS BELIEVE GAYS NSPIRG TO STROY UNTRY'S VALU, POLL FDS

Fellow TV host Vladimir Solovyov livered his mentary on “this filth, this abomatn, this foulns, and nasts” a bizarre sgsong apparently tend to mimic “gay” mannerisms. In a particularly ironic twist, some propagandists such as Olga Skabeyeva exprsed ncern that the ban on “LGBT propaganda” uld accintally brg the hammer down on homophobic propaganda, bee was unclear what kd of pictns of “nontradnal sexual relatns” were prohibed: Could her own show be slapped wh a fe for showg the Zygar/Shcherbak kiss, albe “wh undisguised revulsn, ” as an exposé of “the liberal public” and of “the Wt and s valu”?

The gay-bashg for domtic nsumptn uld achieve at least some sire effect a untry where nearly 70 percent of the populatn believ that nsensual same-sex relatns between adults should be illegal and half say they feel personal hostily toward LGBT people. But is que likely that the current Rsian anti-gay mpaign, cludg the anti–“LGBT propaganda” law, is tend at least part for a Wtern dience—a specific part of , that is.

GAY RSIA

Sixty-three percent of Rsians surveyed said they believe a secret anizatn is tryg to "stroy" the untry's "spirual valu" through gay propaganda. 30, 2018, 8:39 PM UTCNearly two-thirds of Rsians believe gays are nspirg to subvert the untry’s tradnal valu, acrdg to a recent survey nducted by the state-n Rsian Public Opn Rearch Center.

” When broken down by age, however, nearly half (48 percent) of those aged 18-24 said gay advot don't pursue "stctive goals. “[The Rsian LGBT Network’s] monorg reports show that this amount grows steadily sce the adoptn of the so-lled [gay] propaganda law adopted 2013, ” she explaed. However, he said the anti-gay attus found the survey are probably not far off the mark.

‘I’M AAID FOR MY FUTURE’: PROPOSED LAWS THREATEN GAY LIFE RSIA

“This myth of gay people beg imported om somewhere and om dark forc outsi is prevalent, and ’s been there for a long time, ” Kondakov mentned that the mid-20th Century the U. “In the ‘30s, the [Soviet] ernment was tryg to nvce people for short perds of time that gay people, specifilly gay men, were somehow imported om the Nazis, ” Kondakov said.

1 5 RSIANS WANT GAYS AND LBIANS 'ELIMATED,' SURVEY FDS

The same was happeng Germany durg the Holot, where many gays were sent to ncentratn human rights groups report creasg homophobic and transphobic vlence and discrimatn Rsia, this myth appears to have already taken off.

“It shows one particular thg, and that is that the homosexual body, the gay body, is foreign to the natn qutn. ”Rsia’s “gay propaganda law” has been repeatedly cricized by human rights groups and has been found vlatn of ternatnal human rights norms. In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights found that Rsia’s adoptn of the law “had rerced stigma and prejudice and enuraged homophobia, which was patible wh the valu of a mocratic society.