Russian city may enact draconian anti-gay law

The municipal government of St Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city, is one step closer to enacting a harsh new law prohibiting "gay propaganda" which may have the effect of silencing the city's gay citizens:

The bill, which St. Petersburg’s city assembly passed nearly unanimously on the first of three readings on Wednesday, effectively bans public events by LGBTI people and organizations under the pretext of protecting minors.

If enacted, the law would allow authorities to impose fines of up to the equivalent of US$1,600 for “public actions aimed at propaganda of sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality, and transgenderism among minors.”

“This bill is a thinly veiled attempt to legalize discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people in Russia’s second-biggest city,” said Nicola Duckworth, Amnesty International’s Europe and Central Asia Programme Director.

“The notion that LGBTI rights activists are somehow converting Russia’s youth through ‘propaganda’ would be laughable, if the potential effects of this new law weren’t so dangerous and wide-reaching.”

Local LGBTI rights activists have blasted the law, saying it will provide legal cover for banning any of their actions, including the distribution of information leaflets or even actions against homophobia.

Under the measure, freedom of assembly and expression for LGBTI groups would be prohibited anywhere children might be present. This would rule out nearly all public events carried out by or on behalf of LGBTI people and organizations.

The publication of anything relating to LGBTI rights or providing assistance or advice – including informative leaflets as well as publications in the media and on the internet – would also be severely curtailed.

Other Russian cities like Moscow have planned legislation to ban “propaganda for homosexuality”, while Arkhangelsk and the region of Riazan have already introduced such legislation.

Although consensual same-sex activity was decriminalized in Russia in 1993, LGBTI people still face widespread discrimination and violence.

LGBTI activists’ attempts to organize Pride marches, cultural festivals and other events in major cities, including St. Petersburg, have frequently been met with official red tape and violence from anti-gay groups, among them people associating themselves with the Orthodox Church. Violent attacks against LGBTI activists often go unpunished.

The Washington Post reports:

Russia’s top gay rights activist on Thursday condemned a bill passed in the country’s second largest city that prohibits “propaganda of homosexuality” to minors, warning it could be used to ban gay protest rallies.

Nikolai Alexeyev of the GayRussia.ru group described the legislation tentatively approved by lawmakers in St. Petersburg as a “disgrace.”

The bill was proposed by the dominant United Russia party and passed Wednesday by a 27 to 1 vote, with one abstention, in the first of three required readings. It calls for a fine of up to $1,600 for “public actions aimed at propaganda of pederasty, lesbianism, bisexuality, and transgenderism among minors.”

Alexeyev said the bill could become “the main legal reason to deny any public actions by the LGBT community.”

“It theoretically allows the ban of anything anywhere where kids could be present,” he told The Associated Press.

This is yet more evidence that Russia is sliding further into totalitarianism. If you would like to add your name to a petition of support for Russian activists fighting this bill, go here.

The tolerant Middle East

Guess which Middle Eastern cities hold massive Gay Pride parades every year? That would be Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Tel Aviv's parade was held on June 3:

Tens of thousands of people attended Tel Aviv’s annual Gay Pride Parade Friday afternoon, carrying colorful banners calling for equality.

“Being gay is ‘shaveh’ [worthwhile/ equal],” read the poster above the stage at Meir Park, where the parade began.

The event kicked off with a celebratory party in the park, complete with dancers, singers and drag queens.

Police closed streets along the parade route and near the beach, as the procession and street party got under way.

Organizers said that up to 100,000 people took part in the parade, but police put the number at some 70,000.

Police reported no unusual incidents of violence, and the parade concluded peacefully.

Jerusalem's event takes place today. Though not without controversy, specifically protests from the Orthodox Jewish community, it is expected to draw 5 000 people:

More than 5,000 marchers are expected to participate in Jerusalem’s 10th annual Gay Pride Parade on Thursday afternoon.

Open House Executive Director, Yonatan Gher, called Thursday a “combined social struggle,” which will have at least three distinct protests imbuing the city with the air of social fervor. Indeed, protesters will include the doctors marching towards Jerusalem, students and families camped out in tents across the city, and thousands of gay-rights activists marching downtown.

He estimated that the gay pride parade could almost double – from 4,000 participants last year to 7,000 participants this year – given the revolutionary vibe of the capital.

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, the gay activists who marched in Toronto's Pride Parade last year, take note: the country you are so vehemently trying to delegitimize is the only country in the Middle East where homosexuals can live openly and free from state harrassment. Your embarrassing protest would be better directed at Iran:

On Sunday, November 13 [2005], the semi-official Tehran daily Kayhan reported that the Iranian government publicly hung two men, Mokhtar N. (24 years old) and Ali A. (25 years old), in the Shahid Bahonar Square of the northern town of Gorgan.

The government reportedly executed the two men for the crime of "lavat." Iran’s shari`a-based penal code defines lavat as penetrative and non-penetrative sexual acts between men. Iranian law punishes all penetrative sexual acts between adult men with the death penalty. Non-penetrative sexual acts between men are punished with lashes until the fourth offense, when they are punished with death. Sexual acts between women, which are defined differently, are punished with lashes until the fourth offense, when they are also punished with death.

“The execution of two men for consensual sexual activity is an outrage,” said Jessica Stern, researcher with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. “The Iranian government’s persecution of gay men flouts international human rights standards.”

In addition to the two executions last week, there have been other cases of persecution and execution of gay men in Iran in recent years.

• In September 2003, police arrested a group of men at a private gathering in one of their homes in Shiraz and held them in detention for several days. According to Amir, one of the men arrested, police tortured the men to obtain confessions. The judiciary charged five of the defendants with “participation in a corrupt gathering” and fined them.
• In June 2004, undercover police agents in Shiraz arranged meetings with men through Internet chatrooms and then arrested them. Police held Amir, a 21-year-old, in detention for a week, during which time they repeatedly tortured him. The judicial authorities in Shiraz sentenced him to 175 lashes, 100 of which were administered immediately. Following his arrest, security officials subjected Amir to regular surveillance and periodic arrests. From July 2005 until he fled the country later in the year, police threatened Amir with imminent execution.

• On March 15, 2005, the daily newspaper Etemaad reported that the Tehran Criminal Court sentenced two men to death following the discovery of a video showing them engaged in homosexual acts. According to the paper, one of the men confessed that he had shot the video as a precaution in case his partner withdrew the financial support he had been providing in return for sex. In response to the man’s confession, his partner was summoned to the authorities and both men were sentenced to death. As the death penalty was pronounced against both men, it appears to have been based on their sexual activity.

“These abuses have created an atmosphere of terror for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people throughout Iran,” said Stern. “But arrest, torture and execution are not limited to gays and lesbians. Any group of people deemed ‘immoral’ becomes subject to state-sanctioned persecution and even murder.”

Queers Against Iranian Terror anyone?

[crickets chirping]

Ghana about to arrest homosexuals?

According to this report, the government of the Western Region of the African nation of Ghana is about to arrest all homosexuals in the area:

The Western Region Minister Paul Evans Aidoo has ordered the immediate arrest of all homosexuals in the region.

He has tasked the Bureau of National Investigations and all security agencies to smoke out persons suspected to be engaging in same sex.

He also enlisted the services of landlords and tenants to provide reliable information which will lead to the arrest of homosexuals.

His directive follows months of campaigns against the practice of homosexuality in the country.

Only yesterday, the Christian Council of Ghana capped months of protestations against the practice of homosexuality with a strongly worded message against the practice and courting Ghanaians not to vote for any politician who believes in the rights of homosexuals.

Homosexuality is illegal in Ghana, and the country's Bureau of National Investigations (BNI)is poised to begin rounding up homosexuals to deal with the "social canker":

The Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) has begun investigations into the growing rate of homosexuality in the Western and Central regions, Western Regional Minister, Mr. Paul Evans Aidoo has revealed.

According to the minister, there is the need for a thorough investigation into what he terms a "social canker" which has contributed to the growing rate of HIV/AIDS in the country.

...

Mr Paul Evans Aidoo revealed on Adom FM on Wednesday that, even though homosexuality is illegal, it is still widely practiced secretly which makes it very difficult to arrest the culprits.

He said it is very important for the homosexuals to be identified, especially those infected with STDs to control the spread.

The Western Regional Minister added that the BNI is working closely with the police, Ghana Health Service and the NGO to find a lasting solution to the problem.

Mr. Aidoo stressed the need for more education on the dangers of homosexuality in the country.

I have a suggestion for the gay activists at Queers Against Israeli Apartheid: here's a situation where a government is actually persecuting and arresting homosexuals and encouraging neighbours to "smoke them out". Dust off your protest signs and get to work. The Ghana High Commission in Ottawa is located at 1 Clemow Avenue - I eagerly await your response.

Pro-gay rights socialists vs pro-gay death Islamists

Australian Ted Lapkin comments on a recent protest outside a Jewish-owned business in Melbourne:

This unruly mob was so stereotypical that could have been supplied direct from central casting. There were 'kafiyeh' Arab-scarf-wearing Leftwing atheists rallying in defence of the theocratic medievalists of Hamas. There were radical feminists protesting on behalf of an Islamic radical regime that would slap them into a burka so fast it would make their head swim. And let's not forget the Rip Van Winkle hippies, that de rigueur cohort of aging radicals who've never outgrown their anti-Vietnam war protest stage.

And all the while, these protestors were chanting the puerile, poetically-challenged slogans we've come to expect at such events: "hey hey, ho ho [FILL IN THE BLANK] has got to go."

But the most notable ditty of the evening told of liberating Palestine "from the river to the sea". For anyone not immersed in the intricacies of Middle Eastern geography, those boundaries include the entire territory of pre-1967 Israel proper.

...

I've already written about the bizarre strange-bedfellows alliance that's developed between pro-gay rights socialists and pro-gay death Islamists.

Hamas foreign minister Mahmoud a-Zahar has described gays as "a minority of perverts and the mentally and morally sick". And then there's the other perennial favourite cause of the modern feral Left - that surrogate of Teheran known as Lebanese Hezbollah.

Perhaps president Ahmadinejad knew what he was about after all when he declared that homosexuality is unknown in his country. Gay relationships between consenting adults are a capital crime in Iran and many young men have paid the ultimate price for being true to their own sexuality.

But the Trotskyists aren't about to let a little thing like the hanging deaths of Iranian homosexuals get between them and what really matters. There's a much larger principle at stake here. In the eyes of the hard-Left, the task of destroying the Jewish nation-state trumps all other considerations.

This is the same cognitive dissonance that infects Canadian anti-Zionists like Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, who produce an annual flurry of publicity by trying to march in Toronto's Gay Pride Parade. It takes willful ignorance of the facts for gay activists to publicly advocate the dismantling of the only country in the Middle East where gays can live in peace.

Mayor Ford: I won't be at the Pride parade either

Since I'm one of a tiny group of gay conservative bloggers, my eight regular readers sometimes expect me to weigh in from the right side of the rainbow on gay issues in the news. This week's outrage is the revelation that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford will not be attending the city's Gay Pride parade on the Canada Day long weekend. Good for you, Mayor Ford - I won't be there either.

The Pride Parade is not my cup of tea. I think its over-the-top displays of hedonism and sexuality perpetuate some of the worst stereotypes about gay people. It sends a message to straight people that we're shallow, image-obsessed, licentious and horny all the time. When I finally came out to my mother a few years ago, after a good cry she said to me "Well, as long as you're happy I'm OK with it, but I have to tell you that I have a problem with Gay Pride parades". I assured her that she would never turn on the six o'clock news and see me marching down Church Street in assless leather chaps.

However, the parade is important to a lot of gay people who have in many cases suffered real pain and alienation as a result of their sexual orientation. Attending a Pride parade is an important rite of passage for many newly-out gays and lesbians who find for the first time an opportunity to be open and honest in a supportive environment.

My problem with the Pride parade is the political baggage that now clings to it like barnacles on a whale. Should it be publicly funded? Should Queers Against Israeli Apartheid be allowed to march in it or not? What politicians are marching and which ones are conspicuous by their absence?

In the old Soviet Union there was a huge May Day parade every year in Moscow and members of the Politburo appeared on the top of Lenin's Tomb to watch it. Pundits pored over the pictures to see who was there and who was standing where to glean some kind of insight into the secretive inner workings of the Kremlin. The Pride parade now serves the same purpose; elected politicians now feel obliged to attend to publicly prove their tolerance and open-mindedness. It has become a Canadian political litmus test into which people read all kinds of ulterior motives whether they are intended or not.

The so-called Gay Community is not monolithic; the only thing we all have in common is our sexual orientation. Our Venn Diagrams overlap in only this one area of our lives. We are urban and rural, old and young, professional and blue-collar, single and married, parents or childless, and - believe it or not - left wing and right wing. Marching in a parade should not be a yardstick by which politicians are judged when they have such divergent policies on the real issues that affect gay lives; mundane things like taxes, snow removal, garbage collection and policing.

Chris Selley wrote in today's National Post:

Is Mr. Ford homophobic? A few moronic outbursts notwithstanding, I see no reason to think so. His reputation as a sort of minorleague all-purpose bigot is baffling when compared with his record as a municipal politician: He obsessively solves people's problems, no matter who they are. This is a man who wouldn't hang up on a dude trying to score OxyContin. So the idea that riding a float at Pride would change anyone's mind about Mr. Ford is laughable in the first place. Many of the people professing "disappointment" at his decision this week were clearly overjoyed to have an opportunity to hate him even more.

So Mayor Ford would rather spend the weekend at the cottage than attend the Gay Pride Parade. So what? I agree with Chris that there is no evidence that this makes him homophobic or that he cares less about this segment of his constituency than any other. Did he march in the St Patrick's Day Parade, and did the Irish community wail and gnash their teeth about it? Is his attendance at Caribana now mandatory to demonstrate his support for Caribbean immigrants? He should be judged by his actions at City Hall, not by superficial photo ops at festivals.

For the record, I too am relaxing on "Pride Weekend" with my partner over beer and barbecue, miles away from the parade. I'll raise a toast to Mayor Ford while I'm at it.

Politically correct dilemma: does Islamophobia trump homophobia?

A few weeks ago in the UK, stickers appeared in various locations around London's East End proclaiming it a "gay free zone" and quoting passages from the Koran. In response, gay rights campaigners in London have organized East End Gay Pride and plan to march through the neighbourhood on April 2. Said one of the organizers: "We simply want to say: ‘Hang on. You’re wrong. The East End is NOT a gay-free zone’.”

So what's a politically correct gay activist to do when forced to choose between conflicting gay and Islamist agendas? Cry "Islamophobia", of course. The organizers of East End Pride have now been urged by members of London's gay community to cancel the parade for fear of "scapegoating Muslims":

The march, to be held on April 2nd, has been organised by six friends as a response to anti-gay stickers plastered around the East End.

But opponents say it is an “emotional reaction” which “risks antagonising and scapegoating” Muslims.

...

Although the parade has been backed by local police and Tower Hamlets council, some local campaigners are calling for it to be cancelled.

An open letter signed by Out East chair Thierry Schaffauser and Terry Stewart of the Hackney Community Engagement Board claims that the Pride march may “divide our communities” or be used “to oppress other marginalised groups”.

Out East organises Hackney Pride and the letter has also been signed by Denis Fernando of Unite Against Fascism and the Greater London Association of Trade Union Councils.

It says: “We believe that the most appropriate response to the stickers is to liaise with Muslim communities and others to create bridges and communicate with each other.

“We want both homophobia and Islamophobia addressed as a collective problem and not feed one against the other, we do not recognise these as distinct categories.

“We will refuse any attempt to divide our communities or take the risk that an LGBTQ event is used to oppress other marginalised groups, in particular LGBTQ Muslims who will be the most affected by this rising antagonism.”

Unbelievable.

Gays, straights & conservatives

Greg Gutfeld, blogging at Big Hollywood, has this to say on the subject of gays in the conservative movement:

...If you want to argue against homosexuality, you need to move it beyond religion. Fact is, if I get mugged, I can explain to the police why the mugger must be arrested – without saying “it’s in the Ten Commandments.”

After all, pointing to God as the basis for your distaste is what our enemies do every time they try to blow us up. We’re better than that.

Gay equality: "logically coherent from a conservative POV"

Nick Gillespie of Reason Magazine has commented about the dustup at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington over the participation of GOProud, an organization of gay Republicans. The conference was boycotted by several social conservative groups who believe that it is impossible to be a fiscal conservative without also being a social conservative. Gillespie writes:

As a libertarian, I'm in no way tied to CPAC (did speak there a couple of years ago and have attended from time to time), but it's fascinating to me that the conservative movement can't recognize some elemental facts. First and foremost that the world they're trying to create, especially when it comes to intolerance of alternative lifestyles, is never going to happen. And that by insisting, as Sen. James DeMint and Rep. Jim Jordan have, that you can't be a fiscal conservative without being a social conservative, you're alienating all those independents who just might give the GOP a second chance at running the federal budget. And you're in open denial of reality: A person's choice of sexual partner in no way means he or she can't be in favor of less spending on farm subsidies. There's a stunning knot of bull-dinkey at the heart of the argument that tolerance equals uncritical embrace. Do conservatives, of all people, think that the state allowing all religions to practice means official endorsement?

...

Maybe, baby, just maybe. Conservatives should recognize a few things. First, as Clouthier suggests, the fiscal con wing was exposed as just that, a total con job. Under Bush and a supposedly conservative Congress, federal outlays jacked up about 60 percent in real terms. Second, defense cons blew it. They had two wars to show themselves as effective, and they screwed the pooch, wagged the dog, shat the bed, whatever. After a good, long ride at the top, they did nothing well. They didn't create a coherent foreign policy that suggests when the U.S. might intervene and when it shouldn't (the Global War on Terrorism is not simply vague, it provides no stopping point for Wilsonian interventionism, which is decidedly not conservative). And third, social cons have lost, period. Gays are not going back in the closet and demands for equal standing under the law are logically coherent from a conservative POV. Gays didn't destroy marriage or the family (neither of which is in ruins, by the way, but that's another issue). The same goes for drug legalization, which has been touted by such raging liberals as William F. Buckley. In terms of abortion, like it or not, the country has settled into a semi-easy truce that abortion earlier in a pregnancy is OK and the closer the mother comes to term, the less comfortable people feel with it. In any case, advances in contraception and reproductive technologies will almost certainly render such decisions moot as people have gain ever-vaster control of their bodies.

In a historical way, libertarianism predates post-war conservatism. Libertarianism, with its emphasis on individual freedom, conscience, and responsibility, is the direct descendant of the classical liberalism that grew out of the English Civil War of the mid-17th century and worked its way through the Scottish Enlightenment, the Austrian economists, and others. It seeks to shrink to sphere of the state to that of an impartial judge protecting the equal rights of citizens and it valorizes, as Reason's motto puts it, "Free Minds and Free Markets." Sociologically, however, libertarianism has long been seen as a lesser brother to postwar conservatism, "chirping sectaries" in Russell Kirk's dismissive phrase, with about as much potential for leadership as Fredo Corleone.

That's no longer the case, dear conservatives. I'm no triumphalist but everything in the past 40 years suggests that the old-style left-wing command and control models have been thoroughly vanquished in theory if not practice (even old Europe has sold off virtually all of its state monopolies!). And the conservative desire for control of individuals' desire and lifestyles has similary come a cropper; your actual champions in the highest positions in the world have tried your ideas and been found wanting (who can disagree that George W. Bush was a "big-government disaster"?). In a world of increasing decentralization of power and corresponding growth in individual autonomy, libertarianism is looking better and better, both as a description of what's happening in those parts of our lives not completely under the thumb of government and as a guide to minimizing the reach of the state where it still is too grabby.