The plight of gays prompts lls for a boytt of the Sochi Olympics | Europe
Contents:
- GRIM TO BE GAY
- ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
- AM I GAY?
- JAMAI: A GRIM PLACE TO BE GAY
- JUSTICE: IT CAN BE GRIM TO BE GAY, GREENE TELLS MSPS
- 'GRIMM' IS FELY GAY, BUT 'S JT NOT THAT GREAT
- HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY
GRIM TO BE GAY
* grim to be gay *
In India the Supreme Court upheld an 1860 law that crimalis homosexual acts, overlg a 2009 judgment by a lower urt. Europe | Human rights RsiaThe plight of gays prompts lls for a boytt of the Sochi OlympicsSINCE Rsia was award the 2014 Wter Olympics, has had to al wh everythg om st overns to the historil grievanc of the Cirssian diaspora and ncerns over an Islamic surgency the north Cs.
‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
Rsia is socially liberal on adultery, abortn and divorce, but attus to homosexualy remble those the Wt of a generatn ago. The existence of gays and lbians is tolerated as long as they are not seen to “ntamate” the public square, says Tanya Loksha of Human Rights Watch, though the near-visibily of gays and lbians has let prejudice and misunrstandg fter. Alexanr Smirnov, who was asked to qu his job at the Mosw mayor’s office after he me out Afisha, an arts and culture magaze, says gays are seen as “alien people” the new law adds an emotive slur to latent prejudice, by lkg homosexualy and paedophilia.
In prciple, the law appears to prevent any public fence of the rights of gays and lbians— effect, says Pola Andrianova of Comg Out, a mpaign group, creatg a “socially unequal” more worryg, she says, the law has implicly given a “green light to aggrsn”.
Igor Kochetkov, another mpaigner, notic “disillnment and prsn” among Rsia’s gays; a poll fds that the number who experienced harassment or prsure doubled the past year to 50%.
AM I GAY?
A promise for Sochi is likely—but given Mr Put’s polil prri and society’s attus, the outlook for Rsian gays is article appeared the Europe sectn of the prt edn unr the headle "Grim to be gay"From the Augt 24th 2013 ednDisver stori om this sectn and more the list of ntents Explore the edn.
You so obvly nnot be gay, was her implitn, bee this is good was 2006, a full five years before Lady Gaga would set the Born This Way argument atop s unassailable cultural perch, but even then the popular unrstandg of orientatn was that was somethg you were born wh, somethg you uldn’t change. I me out at a nservative Christian llege the US and was a gay relatnship for around two years wh a basketball player who end up marryg a woman. Well, you mt have been gay the whole time, some might thk, and bee of some relig shame, you cid to lie to yourself and experiment wh a girl.
JAMAI: A GRIM PLACE TO BE GAY
But what feels most accurate to say is that I’m gay – but I wasn’t born this people may fd their sir changg directn - and n't jt be explaed as experimentatn (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)In 1977, jt over 10% of Amerins thought gayns was somethg you were born wh, acrdg to Gallup.
Throughout the same perd, the number of Amerins who believe homosexualy is “due to someone’s upbrgg/environment” fell om jt unr 60% to ias reached cril mass pop culture, first wh Lady Gaga’s 2011 Born This Way and one year later wh Macklemore’s Same Love, the chos of which has a gay person sgg “I n’t change even if I tried, even if I wanted to.
JUSTICE: IT CAN BE GRIM TO BE GAY, GREENE TELLS MSPS
” Around the same time, the Human Rights Campaign clared unequivolly that “Beg gay is not a choice, ” and to claim that is “giv unwarranted crence to roundly disproven practic such as nversn or reparative therapy. ”People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backwardAs Jane Ward not Not Gay: Sex Between Straight Whe Men, what’s tertg about many of the claims is how transparent their speakers are wh their polil motivatns.
“Such statements, ” she wr, “fe blogil acunts wh an obligatory and nearly ercive force, suggtg that anyone who scrib homosexual sire as a choice or social nstctn is playg to the hands of the enemy. ” People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backward – even if they are themselv, for example, Cynthia Nixon of Sex and The Cy fame.
'GRIMM' IS FELY GAY, BUT 'S JT NOT THAT GREAT
Callg me “idtic” and “patently absurd”, Aravosis wrote, “The gay haters at the relig right uldn’t have wrten any better.
”Gay rights do not have to hge on a geic explanatn for sexualy (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)For Aravosis, and many gay activists like him, the public will only accept and affirm gay people if they thk they were born gay.
HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY
Patrick Grzanka, Assistant Profsor of Psychology at Universy of Tennsee, for stance, has shown that some people who believe that homosexualy is nate still hold negative views of gays. In fact, the homophobic and non-homophobic rponnts he studied shared siar levels of belief a Born This Way Samantha Allen not at The Daily Beast, the growg public support for gays and lbians has grown out of proportn wh the rise the number of people who believe homosexualy is fixed at birth; would be unlikely that this small change opn uld expla the spike support for gay marriage, for stance.
In 1985, only 24% of Amerin rponnts said they had a gay iend, relative or -worker — 2013, that number was at 75%.
“It don’t seem to matter as much whether or not people believe that gay people are born that way as do that they simply know someone who is currently gay, ” Allen spe of the studi, those who ph agast Born This Way narrativ have been heavily cricised by gay activists. Siarly, Ward has received her own hatemail for phg agast the lg LGB narrativ, wh some gays tellg her she’s “worse than Ann Coulter, ” the ntroversial US thor of books like If Democrats Had Any Bras, They’d Be Republins. And when I published my say on choosg to be gay, an irate Amerin lbian activist wrote me that had “jt been nfirmed” to her that my wrg was “directly rponsible for four gay aths Rsia.