Letter Of The Day: The Guardian

Can we please see an end to the publication of hysterical, hypocritical and at times frankly racist protests about Russian treatment of LGBT people? Russia is not Nazi Germany and, given that an estimated 20 million Russian people died fighting nazism in the second world war, such comparisons are deeply offensive to the population of that country – whatever their sexuality. Gareth Edwards (Letters, 7 February) is the latest to draw comparison but, as far as I know, LGBT people in Russia are not barred from professional occupations, denied access to education, or expected to wear identifying stars on their clothing. Nor are they being detained in camps, whereas by 1936 the concentration camps were certainly in evidence – Sachsenhausen just outside Berlin was opened the same year.

No one condones anti-gay violence but it frequently happens here too, as last years Stonewall report clearly showed. Putin's law is clumsy and bigoted and, as has been pointed out, bears considerable similarity to the now defunct section 28 brought in by the Tory government of the 1980s. I do wonder how Messrs Fry et al would have reacted if the rest of the world had demanded boycotts of British cultural and sporting events through the 80s and 90s and likened our population to Nazis.

David Hodgetts
Burnley, Lancashire

The Guardian.

We cannot blame people for believing hyperbolic nonsense like this - it's basically all the straight and gay media has been telling them.