SOURCE: LifeSiteNews
By Stefano Gennarini
If you believed the NY Times you’d think the Russians had decided to send every homosexual in Russia to the Gulags. But the Russian law, which is expected to soon be passed by the Senate and signed by Putin, effectively acts as a tax on public displays of affection by homosexuals.
Here is how even the NY Times summarizes the law:
Without defining “nontraditional,” the new bill bans making available to children information “intended to form in a minor a nontraditional sexual foundation.” It also prohibits portraying “the attractiveness” of such relations and bans asserting “the social equivalence of traditional and nontraditional sexual relations.” Fines range from $155 for an individual to up to $31,000 for a media outlet.
$155 is hardly unmanageable for homosexuals who want to kiss in public.
While Russians certainly do not want to encourage homosexuality, by no means do they criminalize homosexuality, nor do they discriminate against homosexuals, as some media have claimed. Homosexuals enjoy the same privileges as all other Russians, but they may not promote homosexuality as something positive among children in the same way as Mayor Bloomberg wants to eliminate sugary drinks, and Michelle Obama wants to get unhealthy foods out of school cafeterias.
The media has been portraying the law as an unreasonable measure pushed by “radical religious groups.” But this cannot account for why the lower house of the Russian parliament approved the bill unanimously, with only one abstention. Russia can hardly be described as a religious nation, but the law has overwhelming support in the legislature.
Russians have consistently denied homosexual groups parade permits, sparing its children and the public at large the ludicrous and disturbing behavior on show in the squares and streets of Europe and America.
Similarly the news reports have highlighted episodes where some LGBT persons were victims of violence, without highlighting that the vast majority of the demonstrators at the parliament while the law was being passed were in favor of the law, and that the violence had nothing to do with the vast majority of demonstrators.
The law prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality among children simply codifies that Russia truly is interested in protecting its children, not that is interested in persecuting homosexuals. The fact is, that homosexuality is associated with almost a 20 times higher risk of HIV/AIDS, and other bad health statistics like higher incidence of drug and alcohol abuse, depression, and even suicide. It is no wonder that Russians want to protect their children from embracing homosexual lifestyles.
What remains unclear is why the Western media is so incensed with the Russians.
