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The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.Anti-Dogma In Philadelphia
Jim Burroway
April 29th, 2009
Each spring, LGBT activists gather from around the world to attend the Equality Forum, which is being held in Philadelphia this year. The annual event consists of a full week of programs and special events highlighting the state of LGBT activism across the globe. It’s an important time for information sharing and networking.
Among those attending this year is Ruslan Porshnev, founder of Russia’s Anti-Dogma Project. He will be on a panel along with former U.S. ambassador Michael Guest, and Polina Savchenko, the International Programs Coordinator of St. Petersburg-based Vykhod (Coming Out). They will talk about the many challenges that the LGBT community faces in Russia.
Longtime LGBT readers may remember Ruslan for providing translations of two online BTB publications into Russian. The first was our parody, The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths. A year later, Anti-Dogma sponsored a translation by Victoria Narizhna of Testing The Premise: Are Gays A Threat To Our Children? Ruslan has also been very helpful with providing other translations for BTB.
One remarkable project from an alliance of LGBT activists in Russia is a comprehensive report on the state of LGBT issues in Russia. The report for the first time provides detailed information on the legal status of gay and transgender people in Russia and the forms of discrimination they face. It is a very ambitious project undertaken by the Moscow Helsinki Group and the Russian LGBT Network in 2007-2008.
LaBarbera Award: Igor Panarin
Jim Burroway
March 4th, 2009
A Russian “scholar” has some remarkable predictions for the U.S. in the coming years. President Barack Obama will order martial law, the U.S. will split into six rump-states by 2011, and Russia and China will emerge as the new superpowers of a new world order. He’s been predicting the U.S.’s demise for more than a decade, but he’s pretty sure he has it nailed this time. Why?:
Paranin argued that Americans are in moral decline, saying their great psychological stress is evident from school shootings, the size of the prison population and the number of gay men.
Paranin isn’t just some ordinary loon. He’s a former spokesman for Russia’s Federal Space Agency and reputedly a former KGB analyst. He is currently the dean at the Foreign Ministry’s school for future diplomats, and he makes regular appearances on Russia’s state, err, “guided” TV channels.
Panarin also thinks that Alaska is destined to revert back to Russian control. If that happens, Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin character will definitely see Russia from her front porch.
Moscow Mayor Promises Further LGBT Suppression
Jim Burroway
December 4th, 2008
While speaking at an AIDS conference (no less!), Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said that the city would continue to ban gay rights marches and other “propaganda”:
“So-called democrats consider that sexual minorities can be the main indicator and main symbol of democracy, but we will in future continue to ban propaganda of the views of sexual minorities. Of course, we will be criticised by all democrats in the world but in each society there are own views on that.”
The mayor reportedly blamed gays for the spread of AIDS in Russia, and said that condoms should not be a part of an HIV-prevention program because, he said, “contemporary science” claims that they are not 100% safe. Mayor Luzhkov has previously referred to gays as “satanic.”
For the past several years, local gay rights organizations have been denied permits to hold Pride marches in Moscow. Two years ago, an attempted Pride parade was broken up by police and local thugs. Last year, Pride organizers were able to outsmart Moscow police and hold two visible and public events before authorities were able to shut them down. This occurred despite Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s order that local authorities authorize the march.
Next year, Moscow Pride organisers plan to take advantage of increased visibility surrounding the next May’s Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow to hold a coinciding Pride celebration.
Russian LGBT Activism Update
Jim Burroway
August 16th, 2008
When Russia sent its tanks rumbling into Georgia this week, it signaled a new determination on the part of Russian political leaders to walk boldly onto the world stage. It’s good to know that Russian LGBT activists have been no less bold lately. Last Thursday, several leading activists protested the war in Moscow (in an act which appears to be controversial, if those Google-translated comments are any indication).
Boldness is a necessary quality among Russian LGBT advocates, as we’ve seen several instances of violence and official crackdowns on Pride observances over the past few years. The public discourse on homosexuality is very ugly in Russia, where it is often wrapped up in xenophobia and accompanied by accusations of demonic possession and child molestation. In fact, many Russian anti-gay extremists are about as likely to refer to gays as pederasts as they are to call them homosexuals. And unfortunately, many Russian psychologists and academics are barely more enlightened on the subject than are their skinhead counterparts — something we noticed two months ago.
The repeated allegations of a connection between homosexuality and pedophilia concerned Ruslan Porshnev of the Russian LGBT web site Anti-Dogma. Last month he wrote that local publicity surrounding the rise in abductions, rapes and murders of children in his country has heightened the general hysteria, and that gays were increasingly becoming the targets of official investigations regardless of the evidence.
In response, Anti-Dogma has published a Russian translation by Victoria Narizhna of my examination of the supposed link between homosexuality and child molestation. This is the report where I examined the official statistics and scientific evidence from numerous sources on child sexual abuse and the nature of the abusers. What emerges is that those who self-identify as gay or lesbian are no more likely to molest children of either sex than those who are straight.
The Russian version of the report, Testing the Premise: Are Gays A Threat To Our Children? is now available for download in PDF format, both here and at the Anti-Dogma web site.
Meanwhile the work of LGBT advocacy continues, as activists gather next week in St. Petersburg for a “Summer School” in preparation for an upcoming All-Russian conference on the development of LGBT advocacy nationwide. We wish them the best of luck in their endeavors.
Paul Cameron’s Bedfellows At Moscow State University
Jim Burroway
June 21st, 2008
The New York Times last year ran a short profile on Moscow State University’s sociology department, where students have lodged complaints about that department’s academic standards and living conditions. Students allege that the dean, Vladimir Dobrenkov, has institutionalized anti-Western, xenophobic, nationalistic, and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in the department, which goes a long way toward explaining Cameron’s warm welcome there earlier this week. According to The Times:
The dean’s office has distributed a brochure to all students that approvingly quotes the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ blames Freemasons and Zionists for the world wars, and claims that they control U.S. and British policy and the global financial system,” the students wrote in one of their public appeals. “Studying conditions at the department are unbearable.”
…
“The quality of the education has become so low that it has become terrible,” said one of the students, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation by staff members. “For the last two years all of my education has had to be self-education.”
Richard Bartholomew at Talk to Action has more information about Dobrenkov’s nationalistic views and anti-western conspiracy theories.
A working group of Russian academics from the Public Chamber of Russia responded to student complaints and inspected MSU’s sociology department. They found several deficiencies, including:
- The level of training among the faculty “does not meet world standards,” nor do they follow current knowledge and trends in sociology.
- A number of teaching aids, specifically a three-volume basic textbook that Dobrenkov co-wrote with Elena Kravchenko was found to be “totally unsatisfactory” for not taking into account the current state of sociology in Russia and abroad. Several examples of plagiarism were also found in the textbook along with conflicting interpretations of key concepts.
- While some graduate-level work by students were found to be “quite professional,” others offered for inspection to the working group included ideological expressions of bigotry against other cultures.
- Questions on final exams fell short of the current state of sociology. Students received high marks on their exams despite not knowing about the works by major well-known scientists.
- MSU’s faculty operates in near-complete isolation from the rest of the sociological world. With few exceptions, members of MSU’s faculty aren’t published in significant sociology journals, they don’t participate in international conferences, and they don’t invite external experts for lectures.
- The working group also noted that Dobrenkov plans to train students in what he calls “Orthodox sociology.” This, the working group noted, was especially troubling for a leading national university which trains sociologists who are then expected to compete in international sociology.
Given Paul Cameron’s numerous denunciations by professional associations here in the United States — including two denunciations by the American Sociological Association — it looks like he found some kindred spirits at Moscow State who may well be receptive to his proposed pogroms against LGBT people here and abroad.
See also:
Paul Cameron’s Bedfellows At Moscow State University
Paul Cameron Urges Russia To Suppress Gays
Paul Cameron: A Fool In Moscow
Paul Cameron to Speak In Moscow
Paul Cameron Urges Russia To Suppress Gays
Jim Burroway
June 20th, 2008
Paul Cameron is continuing his tour of Moscow, where he’s spreading his virulent form of anti-gay propaganda masquerading as “science” to receptive audiences. Yesterday, he spoke at a round table sponsored by the Russian Orthodox Church, where he claimed that gays are twice as likely to abuse alcohol and drugs, and avoid paying taxes. That last one is a new one, but likely a key part of his Nazi-inspired “homosexuals-as-parasites” argument.
He also said that one reason we have so many gays and lesbians in this country is because we ignored his research. He claimed that some two-thirds of us are gay because our first sexual experience was at a young age with someone of the same sex. He also said that we could have reduced the number of gays and lesbians by 60-70% if only Americans had followed his manifesto, and he urged Russians to support Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s Gay Pride ban. Cameron also said that the sociology faculty of Moscow State University is interested in developing an institute to perform studies similar to Paul Cameron.
They might want to ask a few professional organizations here in the U.S. first if they don’t want to taint the good name of Moscow State University. The American Sociological Association condemned him twice in 1985 and 1986 for his unethical conduct, saying that he is not a sociologist. Cameron had begun to call himself one after having been dropped from the American Psychological Association for ethical violations. He was also condemned by the Nebraska Psychological Association for his unethical misuse of other researchers’ work. Just last year, Cameron was condemned by the president of the Eastern Psychological Association for misrepresenting the nature of his “Scandinavian lifespan study.”
Cameron openly admires how the Nazi’s “dealt with” homosexuality in the 1930s and 40s, which makes it particularly egregious that he’s finding a receptive audience in Russia for his dangerous ideas. He’s not likely to ever attain his dream of rounding up gays and lesbians and tattooing them or putting them into concentration camps in this country, and it’s also not likely in Russia either. But he clearly intends to support continued violence and official oppression there. And there are countries around the world where Cameron’s lunacy doesn’t sound so crazy, which should concern all of us.
[Hat tip: Ruslan Porshnev of Anti-Dogma]
See also:
Paul Cameron’s Bedfellows At Moscow State University
Paul Cameron Urges Russia To Suppress Gays
Paul Cameron: A Fool In Moscow
Paul Cameron to Speak In Moscow
Paul Cameron: A Fool In Moscow
Jim Burroway
June 18th, 2008
Monday we warned that Paul Cameron was to speak yesterday before the sociology faculty of Moscow State University. Now we have a report of what he told that audience. Not surprisingly, it’s the same claptrap he’s been peddling here in the U.S.
In this glowing account of his talk (they describe him as a “famous” or “renowned” scientist three times), Cameron repeats the most chilling line of his standard stump speech. He contends that gays and lesbians don’t produce children and they allegedly cost society more than they produce. In recent writings where he pursues this line of reasoning, he concludes that gays and lesbians lead parasitic lives — with all of its implications and deserved consequences. This poor translation doesn’t reveal that he actually repeated the term “parasitic lives”, but that is an integral part of his speech. In fact, we have heard it very recently.
Cameron also promoted his arsenal of discredited “studies,” claiming 20-40% of child molestations by foster parents in Illinois were done by gay people, and that gays and lesbians are much more prone to drug abuse and diseases. But his deceitful misuse of science has earned him denunciations and censure from by every professional organization he has come in contact with.
Cameron claimed that how Russia deals with homosexuality will determine the fate of Western civilization and asks, “Do you want to be the same fools as us?” No doubt, Cameron believes that Russia could serve as a laboratory to test Cameron’s Nazi-esque solution for homosexuality.
[Hat tip: Ruslan Porshnev of Anti-Dogma]
UPDATE: Tomorrow Cameron will speak at a round table sponsored by the Russian Orthodox Church.
See also:
Paul Cameron’s Bedfellows At Moscow State University
Paul Cameron Urges Russia To Suppress Gays
Paul Cameron: A Fool In Moscow
Paul Cameron to Speak In Moscow
Paul Cameron to Speak In Moscow
Jim Burroway
June 16th, 2008
California may be about to issue its first marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples, but that doesn’t mean anti-gay extremists are crawling back into the woodwork anytime soon. Paul Cameron, of the Family “Research” Institute has no intention of fading away. He is in Moscow, where tomorrow he will speak at Moscow State University on a panel called “Social norms and prospects of development of society.”
According to this translated news item, Cameron will be spreading his discredited “research” to Russia, where he remains an unknown quantity. There, he will speak on “Homosexuality and the demographic problem.” Population declines in Eastern Europe and Asia has been very fertile ground lately for anti-gay extremists, and part of the blame for declining birth rates have been leveled squarely at gays and lesbians. No doubt Cameron will add to this by stoking his discredited “Scandinavian Lifespan Study.” You may remember that his misrepresentations surrounding this so-called “study” prompted a stern rebuke from the Eastern Psychological Association last year.
It’s especially distressing to see Cameron speaking to the sociology faculty at Moscow State University. The American Sociological Association has the unique distinction of having denounced him twice in 1985 and 1986. The ASA couldn’t have been more clear about what they thought of his “research”:
“The American Sociological Association officially and publicly states that Paul Cameron is not a sociologist, and condemns his consistent misrepresentation of sociological research.”
Cameron was also dropped by the American Psychological Association in 1983 following allegations of professional misconduct, and he was censured by the Nebraska Psychological Association in 1984.
Anti-gay extremists have been finding a very receptive audience in Russia and Eastern Europe. The Watchmen On the Walls held a rally in Novosibirsk in which American holocaust revisionist Scott Lively excused Satander Singh’s murder in Sacramento. With holocaust revisionism proving to be so effective in Russia and Eastern Europe, Paul Cameron should feel very much at home.
[Hat tip: Ruslan Porshnev at Anti-Dogma]
See also:
Paul Cameron’s Bedfellows At Moscow State University
Paul Cameron Urges Russia To Suppress Gays
Paul Cameron: A Fool In Moscow
Paul Cameron to Speak In Moscow
Moscow Pride Organizers Jubilant
Jim Burroway
June 2nd, 2008
Organizers of yesterday’s Moscow Pride events consider yesterday’s actions a tremendous success. Throughout the day, they were able to stage two highly visible demonstrations garnering local and international media attention while eluding police. Police had tried to preemptively detain Moscow Pride organizer Nickolai Alekseev earlier that morning, but he was able to get away.
No one was hurt during the events, but five activists were ultimately detained. One was briefly held but let go, while the four who unfurled the banner from an apartment across from Moscow City Hall were released by the court the following Monday morning.
With the release of those four activists, Alekseev declared the event over and hailed the event a success:
“Our people showed that we are not only a force for gays but a political force and won’t compromise on our rights,” he told AFP.
Alekseev elaborated further in an email:
“No human rights group or opposition [has] ever humiliated the Moscow authorities so much.
We wanted to defy the Mayor in front of his office. Not only [has the] homophobia of Mayor Luzhkov been advertised today, but also the full collapse of his administration to prevent gays and lesbians [from] realiz[ing] their constitutional rights to march.
Today, we showed that our group is powerful not only in gay and lesbian aspects, but in general. Our fight is only at its beginning.”
[Hat tip: Bob Schwartz, Gay Liberation Network]
Russian Gay Rights Activists Besieged By Police and Arrested
Jim Burroway
June 1st, 2008
In the latest attempts to hold a Pride demonstration in Moscow, activists unfurled a banner from a private apartment across the street from Moscow City Hall on Sunday. Shortly after 1:00 in the afternoon, activists unfurled the six meter banner reading, “Rights to gays and lesbians — homophobia of mayor Luzhkov to be prosecuted.”
Four unidentified activists were in the apartment, which was immediately besieged by Moscow police who spend the rest of the day trying to gain forced entry into the apartment without a court order. At one point, the police threatened to plant drugs on the four and charge them with false drug charges.
Shortly after 9:00 that evening, police were able to force their way into the apartment and arrest the four activists.
UK Gay News is facilitating a rolling update on their web site of continuing coverage from Russian bloggers. It’s a very riveting account. Bloggers also report that the Russian LGBT websites GayRussia.ru and Gay.ru were taken offline for unknown reasons. (Gay.ru appears to be back online.)
The action across from Moscow City Hall followed a cat-and-mouse game of chase between gay activists and Moscow police. LGBT activists, who had been keeping their plans secret, eluded police and staged a short protest in front of the Tchaikovsky statue at the Moscow music conservatory. Thirty-five people unfurled a banner and flag and shouted pro-gay slogans, and then left before police could arrive.
There are no other reports of arrests of pro-gay activists, although it has been reported that perhaps as many as fifteen anti-gay and nationalist protesters were also arrested.
It had been reported earlier that Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev ordered the Prefecture of the Central Administrative area of Moscow to authorize a Gay Pride demonstration. Since his election the the Russian presidency, there has been widespread speculation that he would be a mere figurehead president as former president Vladimir Putin takes the role as Prime Minister. It appears that Moscow city authorities have adopted a similarly dismissive view of Medvedev’s authority as well.
Russian President Intervenes on Moscow Pride
Jim Burroway
May 30th, 2008
It has been learned that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the Prefecture of the Central Administrative area of Moscow to authorize a Gay Pride demonstration. This came after Moscow Pride organizers had applied for permission to hold five marches every day in May. All of the applications have been denied by Moscow municipal authorities however, claiming that the marches would “endanger public order and cause negative reaction of the majority of the population.”
Local organizers say they have not received confirmation from Moscow City officials of permission to hold the event. They plan on conducting a small demonstration this Sunday in front of Moscow City Hall.
Moscow had banned Pride events in 2006 and 2007. Last year’s Pride demonstration ended in violence. Moscow mayor Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has branded gay Pride parades as “satanic” and vowed that they would never be permitted in the capital.
Russian Bill To Recriminalize Homosexuality Introduced
Jim Burroway
May 20th, 2008
365gay.com is reporting that a bill was introduced in Russia’s lower house to recriminalize homosexuality, providing for up to five year in prison for anyone convicted of the crime. The bill, introduced Monday by Deputy Nikolay Kuryanovich, would also make it a crime for gays to congregate, which would prohibit meetings or gay pride marches .
It’s unclear how far Kuryanovich’s bill will go. Earlier this month, Russian Vanguard, a monarchist group with ties to the Russian Orthodox Church demanded that Article 121, which had banned homosexuality in the former Soviet Union, be restored.
Next week will mark the fifteenth anniversary of Article 121′s repeal. It was repealed on May 27, 1993.
“Day Of Silence” Events Staged In Russia
Jim Burroway
May 6th, 2008
From UK Gay News comes word of the first Day of Silence held last weekend in three cities across Russia. Day of Silence events were held on Saturday in St. Petersburg, Novokuznetsk and Yaroslavl. Two participants in St. Petersburg were assaulted following a rally and skinheads attacked participants in Novokuznetsk. Nevertheless, organizers counted the events a rousing success.
St. Petersburg officials had initially given permission for a public Day of Silence demonstration, but this permission was rescinded a few days before the event. In response, the organizers scaled back their plans and staged individual protests in St. Petersburg’s Chrenyshevskiy Park since individual demonstrations don’t require approval by authorities. For two hours, the participants stood silently with a banner that read, “I am silent to be heard.” Their mouths were taped shut as they handed out flyers to passersby.
According to one report, the Day of Silence participants were guarded by ten policemen during the demonstration. The rally in the park went off without incident, but two of the participants were attacked afterwards by three assailants as they made their way to a nearby café. Igor Petrov, one of the Day of Silence organizers, and Ignat Fialkovskiy, the press secretary of the International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Side by Side, suffered kicks and bruises requiring medical treatment. Formal complaints have been filed with the police.
In Novokuznetsk in central Russia, twenty volunteers responded to a “flash mob” appeal sent through social networks. Despite the bad weather, organizers were pleased with the response. However a group of skinheads attacked several participants, injuring one young man.
The organizer of the group from Yaroslavl, 160 miles northeast of Moscow reported that nine people took part in their “flash mob.” No problems were reported there.
Despite the problems encountered in Novokuznetsk and St. Petersburg, Russian Day of Silence organizers consider the actions a rousing success:
We were able to achieve the most important thing — the word about the problem of emotional harassment and violence, discrimination and intolerance based on sexual orientation and gender identity reached many people, while the attacks on the participants of the event in St. Petersburg and Novokuznetsk confirmed the relevance of the problem.
Hat tip: UK Gay News
Moscow’s Banned Pride Day Becomes Pride Month
Jim Burroway
April 25th, 2008
Russian gay rights advocate Nikolai Alexeyev’s bid for a gay pride parade during the May Day holidays was rejected by Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov. Segei Tsoi, the mayor’s spokesman, warned that if they went ahead with the march, there “could be blood, which no one wants. He also accused Alexeyev of trying to “spoil” a traditional labor holiday, a charge which Alexeyev adamantly rejected:
“As if gays don’t support peace and don’t work,” said an incredulous Alexeyev. “Don’t we pay the taxes that support this government? I don’t understand this at all.”
In response, Alexeyev has announced that he will submit notifications for five marches per day for each day in May on different streets around Moscow’s city center. Anticipating that none of these marches will be permitted to take place, Alexeyev says it will demonstrate to the Council of Europe that “homosexuals are not allowed to freely express their opinions in Moscow — in any day in any form, in any street and in any time.” Russia is a member of the Council of Europe and a signatory to the European Convention of Human Rights, which obligates Russia to observe the rights to peaceful assembly and demonstrations. A complaint has been filed in the European Court in Strasbourg.
Mayor Luzhkov has branded gay pride parades as “satanic” and vowed that they would never be permitted in the capital.
Last year’s Moscow Pride gathering was broken up by violent thugs, Russian Orthodox clergy and police. None of the anti-gay assailants who instigated the violence were arrested. Instead, police hauled off Alexeyev, British gay rights advocate Peter Tatchell, Right Said Fred singer Richard Fairbrass, Italian Member of European Parliament Marco Cappato, German Member of Parliament Volker Beck, and 27 others.
Homosexuality was legalized in Russia in 1993, but discrimination against gays and lesbians remains widespread.
Today In History: A Russian Gay Icon Is Born
Jim Burroway
March 21st, 2008
On March 21, 1903, one hundred and five years ago today, the great Russian tenor Vadim Alekseevich Kozin was born in St. Petersburg. In the 1920′s he was celebrated throughout the Soviet Union for his recordings and concerts, specializing in gypsy romances and love songs. It was those love songs that he wrote and sang with such passion and tenderness that garnered him the title of the “Russian Orpheus.” He once gave a concert with American Paul Robeson and is said to have performed for Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at the Tehran conference in 1943.
But in those precarious days during Stalin’s rule, Kozin’s illustrious career ended all too abruptly. He fell out of favor with the Kremlin and was arrested in 1944. He was sent to a prison camp near Magadan in the Russian Far East for five years for political offenses, “corruption of youth” and homosexuality. From that moment on, his songs disappeared from the radio and his public concerts came to an end.
After his release in 1950, Vadim resumed performing in local theaters in the Russian Far East and Siberia, but he was prohibited from performing in Moscow and Leningrad. It was during this period when Vadim began to keep a diary, portions of which were published in Moscow just last month:
In one of the diary’s few romantic passages, Kozin described a man whose name is not given. “How I would like even just once, even for one instant, to look into the depth of those green eyes,” he wrote in August 1956. “Why does it happen like this? One person appears, and there is nothing else sacred in the world. He has filled it all himself. Who that person is, no one will ever find out.”
While he may have avoided physical details, Kozin often used the diary to express his impatience with the official attitude toward homosexuality. “There is nothing unnatural in the life I want to live. There is real, good friendship and complete mutual trust,” he wrote in one entry. In another, he criticized actors with their “demonstration of fictional family values” and waving of party cards. “Do I have the moral right, with my defects, to see them that way?” he asked himself. “After torturous and long thought, I have realized that I do. They are much more rotten people.”
Nevertheless, Kozin was acutely aware that he risked another sentence. He was unnerved by the open gay affairs of an actor on the same tour. “His behavior will lead him to the camp,” he wrote. “I must tell him that his sexual motives shouldn’t affect me at all. … I don’t want people to think about me like that again. I will try to suffer alone.”
Kozin’s fears were well-founded. He was arrested again in 1959 for homosexuality and was forced to write a humiliatingly detailed confession. Despite a brief revival in the 1980′s when his records were reissued, he was never officially rehabilitated. He died in Madagan in 1994 at the age of 91.
Since his death, Vadim Kozin has become an icon in Russia’s gay community. One of his most famous songs is one called “Friendship” which, he later confided to a friend, was dedicated to another man:
“We are so close that words do not have to be repeated. Our tenderness and our friendship are stronger than passion and greater than love.”
Vadim Kozin with friends in Madagan in 1993:
Russian Week Against Homophobia
Jim Burroway
February 24th, 2008
Fifteen years ago, Russia repealed its laws making male homosexuality a criminal offense. But those heady times were beginning to seem seem like a more distant memory when police and mobs violently attacked gay pride marchers in Moscow last year. Then in August, the Washington Post reported on deep divisions among Russia’s LGBT advocates, between those who pressed for more confrontational tactics against the rising tide of homophobia and others who felt that a more indirect approach was needed in order to avoid a harsh backlash.
Many of those advocates came together in January to launch a nationwide campaign to monitor discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The newly-formed Russian LGBT Alliance has also declared the week of March 15-31 as Russian Week against Homophobia (RWAHO). According to their press release:
Russian Week against Homophobia is a special attempt to attract public attention in a certain time-frame to the problem of homophobia and to its danger to the society as a whole. It’s a chance of responding to homophobic rhetoric by creating an area free from discrimination and hatred towards people.
…This year Russian Week against Homophobia will be held in major cities like Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Voronezh, Krasnodar, Omsk, Petrozavodsk, Rostov-na-Donu, Samara, Tumen, Cheylabinsk, etc.
During March 25-31 there will be seminars, panel discussions, meetings, film showings with debates, as well as other events targeted at homophobia elimination in Russian society. Also, signature drive for the “Manifest against Homophobia” started last year will be continued.
They really have their work cut out for them. This morning’s New York Times reported on Russia’s transformation into a de facto one-party state under President Vladimir Putin. Reports of violence, threats, intimidation and coercion against opposition parties have have guaranteed Putin’s remaining in power under a figurehead president. Homophobia also played a role in the propaganda campaign against opposition parties:
Meanwhile, a different kind of propaganda war was being waged on the streets. Russia has relatively conservative attitudes toward homosexuality, and all autumn long Nizhny Novgorod was blanketed with tens of thousands of leaflets saying that Mr. Nemtsov’s liberal, pro-Western opposition party, the Union of Right Forces, ardently favored gay rights and employed canvassers with AIDS. Neither was true.
The leaflets often included the name and phone number of a leader of the party’s regional candidate slate, Andrei Osipenko. Some had condoms attached and announced offers to send supporters to a gay-pride event in Amsterdam.
…
The party was refused advertising space on everything from billboards to newspapers to television. When Mr. Nemtsov tried to campaign in Nizhny Novgorod in the fall, no one would rent him a hall. In November, the party headquarters were ransacked and spray-painted with profanities and graffiti that called it the “Party of Gays.”
Hat Tip: Ruslan Porshnev, whose Anti-Dogma project is a member of the Russian LGBT Alliance.
Russian Summit Brings LGBT Advocates Together
Jim Burroway
February 9th, 2008
LGBT Advocates from fifteen regions across Russia met on January 25-26 to launch a nationwide campaign to monitor discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. That monitoring was planned to launch on February 1. Advocates also discussed medium-term strategies for bringing together an all-Russia convocation of activists and civic organizations. Ruslan Porshnev, of the Antidogma Project was there and said that he was encouraged to see not just LGBT people there, but allies as well:
The fact that LGBT issues, according to MHG Executive Director Nina Tagankina , are starting to lose their “untouchable” label among Russian human rights activists, gives hope for weakening of homonegative attitudes among Russians. For me personally this meeting was a breakthrough in some ideological sense. I hope that the positive impulse participants got on the meeting will be realized in certain projects for our mutual good.
Ruslan provided the Russian translation of our parody, “The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing the Myths.” You can read more about him and the Antidogma Project and the current climate in Russia in his guest post from last July.
The Russian LGBT Network clearly has its work cut out for them. The Russian online news portal Kommersant recently reported on a Levada-Center poll from last December which found that 84% of Russians consider homosexuality “unacceptable” and only 3% found it “quite acceptable.” That’s a serious deterioration from 2006, when only 47% condemned gays and lesbians.
Ever Wonder What Anti-Gay Hatred Sounds Like In Russian?
Jim Burroway
October 14th, 2007
Here’s American Scott Lively speaking alongside his Russian translator at last August’s Watchmen On the Walls conference in Novosibirsk:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3462412806399458879See also:
From Novosibirsk To Lynnwood
From Novosibirsk To Lynnwood
International hate group Watchmen on the Walls will gather in Lynnwood, Washington Oct 19-21. Their conference in Novosibirsk last August may provide a provocative preview.
Jim Burroway
October 14th, 2007
The international anti-gay extremist group Watchmen on the Walls will hold a conference in Lynnwood, Washington October 19 through 21. Unfortunately, the Lynnwood Convention Center doesn’t appear to know who they are dealing with:
The venue is owned by the Lynnwood Public Facilities District, a public taxing district that operates the convention center but is separate from the city.
“Our understanding is that they’re law-abiding. They have a right of free speech just like any other group,” said Mike Echelbarger, the board’s chairman.
“If we were talking about the (Ku Klux Klan) we’d have a totally different take on it. Of course we wouldn’t rent to the KKK,” he said.
Of course, they wouldn’t rent to the KKK. But as we reported earlier, they may as well. The rhetoric the Watchman use has often been violent, using the rhetoric of warfare in their speeches and writings. Founded by Redmond, Washington by preacher Kenneth Hutcherson, holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, and Latvian megachurch pastor Alexey Ledyaev, Watchmen on the Walls have gained a tremendous amount of influence in Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia. Ledyaev’s fomenting of anti-gay hatred in Riga, Latvia led to violence when skinhead and other demonstrators threw excrement and eggs at Gay Pride participants in 2006.
And as the SPLC recently reported, the Watchmen also represent an increasingly violent anti-gay movement among Slavic evangelical immigrants in several U.S. cities which have previously been known as being gay friendly. In July 2007, a group of Russian-speaking men killed Satendar Singh, a 26-year-old gay Fijian of Indian near Sacramento, California. Two men, Andrey Vusik, 29, and Aleksandr Shevchenko, 21 were charged in connection with Singh’s death. Vusik fled to Russian in July and is being sought by the FBI. Ledyaev and Lively have refused to publicly condemn the killing.
Scott Lively (right) at the Watchmen conference in Novosibirsk, Aug 16-19.
I recently learned that the Watchmen held a conference last August in the Siberian capital of Novosibirsk in the Russian Federation. Scott Lively appeared at that conference, where he described Singh’s killing to his Russian audience his way:
Now, I’ve been working with the Russian community in Sacramento. And I want to tell you this is an example of how bad things are in the United States. Because we’ve come to a place in the United States where the homosexuals have achieved very high power. And they’ve begun to punish… They’ve begun to cause the political powers to punish anyone who says that homosexuality is wrong.
There was a situation in Sacramento a few weeks ago in a public park. There was a group of homosexuals and they were very drunk and one of the homosexual men was taking off his pants. And there were children in the park. And a Russian man went over to these homosexuals and he was rebuking them and there started a fight. And the Russian man punched the homosexual. [The audience starts to shout and applaud.] No, no, no, don’t… The man was very drunk… the homosexual was very drunk. He was very drunk and he fell down and he hit his head and he died. [Some in the audience start to applaud and laugh] No…. no…
Now the Russian man has been accused of murder and the FBI is seeking him. And all of the powers in Sacramento have been accusing all of the Russian community of being murderers. And the goal is to silence everyone who speaks against homosexuality. And this is a very dangerous situation because we don’t want homosexuals to be killed. We want them to be saved. Amen?
Do you feel the love?
Scott Lively’s fame in the Slavic-American evangelical community stems from his book, The Pink Swastika, where he blames the rise of Nazism in Germany on gays. This theory has been readily accepted among a population who suffered mightily at the hands of the Nazis during World War II. In a June 23, 2003 letter to the Washington Times, Lively wrote that “No clear-thinking person believes that the homosexual sexual ethic and that of the family-based society can peacefully coexist. …One must prevail at the expense of the other.” He repeated and expanded that war rhetoric in his remarks in Novosibirsk:
There is a war that is going on in the world. There is a war that is waging across the entire face of the globe. It’s been waging in the United States for decades, and it’s been waging in Europe for decades. It’s a war between Christians and homosexuals.
This is a war you haven’t seen yet. You’ve only seen a little bit of it, because Russia had been protected against the homosexual movement by the Communists. One of the few good things that the Soviet Union did is that it stopped the sexual revolution from infecting the Russian people. But all across the West, the sexual revolution changed the culture of the nations. The sexual revolution embraces the idea that there should be no limits on sexual conduct.
And this is the design of the Devil to destroy civilization, because civilization is based on the natural family. One man and one woman united in marriage bringing children into the world and training them to replace them in the next generation. That’s the foundation of civilization and the heart of Christian living.
And in the United States where the sexual revolution began, it was the homosexual political movement that designed this strategy to attack Christianity. The homosexual movement teaches sexual freedom, and its first target is the heterosexual people. The homosexual activists stayed hidden but they taught this philosophy through their activists. And out of the philosophy came the principalities and powers that is destroying the West: The pornography industry, the abortion industry, and the destruction of marriage through divorce.
These things are the product of a way of thinking. They deny the Truth of God. They deny the design of God for human beings. And their purpose is the change the cultures of the world.
Now, the homosexual movement has been winning this war in the United States, and it has been winning this war in Europe. And we’re looking at the future collapse of Western civilization. And Watchmen on the Walls is an organization to fight against this collapse. Watchmen On the Walls is an organization of men and women with courage, who will stand on the Truth of God and without compromise demand that the culture will follow the guidance of God. That marriage and family must be held at the highest level.
Ken Hutcherson has been equally blunt with the war rhetoric, telling the Seattle Times last January, “We better wake up. This is a war.” Hutcherson went to Latvia last March to speak at Ledyaev’s church in preparation for this year’s Pride celebrations. While there, he claimed that he was speaking on behalf of President Bush, saying that the White House’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives named him “Special Envoy for Adoptions, Family Values, Religious Freedom, and Medical Relief.” When the Seattle Stranger asked the White House about it, spokeswoman Alyssa J. McLenninghen said nobody gave Hutcherson any such title or authority to speak on behalf of the White House. Hutcherson promised to prove his status by producing video of him being given the “power,” but no such proof has surfaced.
According to a translation of the Watchmen On the Walls website, Vlad Kusakin says the conference in Lynnwood is intended to promote the “protection of traditional Christian and moral values, which, owing to the liberalization of mores are under threat of extinction.” Kusakin is the host of a Russian-language anti-gay radio show in Sacramento and the publisher of a Russian-language newspaper in Seattle. He is also one of the speakers at the conference. Scott Lively rallied his Novosibirsk audience with a similar mandate:
If we allow the people who hate God to take control of all the centers of power, then they will change all of the rules and they will put barriers in the way of the Gospel. They will prevent us from telling the truth to the people around us. But if the people of God can step forward and take control of the centers of power, then we can make the rules work in favor of the Gospel. We can use the government to help us tell the message of Jesus Christ. And we must do this!
Hat tips: Ruslan Porshnev and BTB reader Tom.
See also:
Ever Wonder What Anti-Gay Hatred Sounds Like In Russian? — for video of Scott Lively’s talk last August in Novosibirsk.
The Watchmen: Protections for LGBT Youth Worse Than Holocaust Furnaces
