As I looked at the videos and photos coming out of Russia after the archaic laws banning “gay propaganda” was signed into law by Vladimir Putin, I was shocked. I was angry. I felt like we had to stand up and do something! I felt like protests and raising awareness to the travesty that is happening in that country might change Russia. It might give gay Russians a way to look forward to brighter days and a better tomorrow. I’m now falling into a feeling of disconnection and sickness. I am physically nauseated by the conditions the gay community in Russia is being subjected to.
I read an article on the Advocate called “Russia Raids Gay People’s Homes.” As I read this, my mind went back to the days of Adolf Hitler, and his raids on suspected Jews, gypsies, handicap and gay homes. The parallels to the Holocaust in and around Germany and what is going on in Russia today are eerily similar. The above article states that Putin’s government is passing out pamphlets that warn people that they could fall victim of the anti-gay propaganda laws and face the consequences. They are creating a hysteria that being gay is this evil sickness that must be exterminated and those that may speak with a gay neighbor and not turn them in for their propaganda may find themselves victims of these atrocious laws.
Another alarming revelation coming out of Russia is that the Russian Parliament is beginning debate on a “gay conversion bill” in which gay people can voluntarily begin treatment for their gay “illness” for free. As it stands now this law would only be voluntary, but as The New Civil Rights Movement points out in their article, “Russian Parliament Working on Bill to “Return Gays” to ‘Normal Life’ via ‘Ex-Gay Therapy,’” how long will it be before this voluntary measure becomes a sentence for those that are found to be guilty under the “gay propaganda law?”
The LGBT community in Russia is getting brutally attacked by heathens that hide behind Putin’s laws to physically harm and kill gay people. The Russian government is creating an environment in which people are being taught that gay people are sub-human and sick. The government is now discussing a voluntary service to make gay people straight, which is harmful and destructive to those it is brought upon. I question what type of ex-gay therapy will they use. Will they use torture? Will they use shock therapy? Will they use the “voluntary” ex-gay therapy as a means to plea bargain with suspected gay people? “If you agree to this counseling, it won’t go on your record. You won’t be branded a homosexual and disgraced by your family, your friends and your community. Your current and future employers won’t have to know.”
There have been rumors flying around, which I have heard on the news and it is brought up in the New Civil Rights Movement article that Russian Parliament is considering a bill that would allow the government to remove children from their parents’s homes, if the parents are suspected of being gay. At what point will it stop? To what point will the degradation and humiliation of the LGBT community in Russia end?
The treatment of the gay community in Russia by it’s people and by the Russian Parliament will manifest the idea that gay people are less than and that they are sick. “They must be treated.” “There is a cure for their deviance.” “When we break them down to where they won’t have their family, to where they lose their identity, only then will they be broken down and have no other choice than to leave their deviant lifestyle and stop infecting our innocent children.”
We’re headed down a dark path. A path that doesn’t have an end in sight, and a world that stands idly by. I don’t know what I can do as one man that just scrapes by with what I have while attending college. But I know I can’t remain silent. I can’t stand idly by. The cost is far too great for any of us to stand idly by.
I can’t say for certain another Holocaust will happen, but Russia sure is beating the drum to creating torture chambers there. They already have in so many respects. It’s only a matter of time before people start dying at the hands of the Russian government under the anti-gay laws. Putin won’t be as openly defiant to a world court by creating obvious gay storehouses, but his gay conversion therapy could be the perfect cover for a disgusting chamber where gays are helplessly tortured. We can’t sit idly by this time. Something has to be done.
The Political Queer 