Fagburn: Here Is The Gayer News!

• Dong! The forward march of fascist anti-gay pasta halted. An ever-so slightly pyrrhic victory for gay hysterics and fans of phoney outrage, as Barilla pasta announces competition asking the gays to make gay-friendly adverts getting other gays to buy Barilla pasta! Mamma mia!

• Dong! Saint Peter of Tatchell is organising another pointless protest against Valery Gergiev, some Russian conductor who supports Putin! Remember: Russia is uniquely evil, and this old man is personally responsible for all its sins. You are asked to bring sparklers. Yes, sparklers! Drop me a line if you have any idea what all this is meant to achieve, beyond getting Mr Vain's picture in the papers again, and boring some posh people. [Update: And here Peter digs himself into an almighty hole and shows once more why so many on the Left think he's a berk].

• Dong! Dan's Bank Balance Just Gets Better! Want Dan Savage to speak at your college? That'll be $24,000, please! The official voice of American gay privilege don't come cheap. Hopefully Dan throws in his classic  "Say 'Yes' To War On Iraq!" routine for free. [Update: Savage tells a conference he wants; "Population control: there's too many goddamn people on the planet. You know, I'm pro-choice, I believe that women should have a right to control their bodies. Sometimes in my darker moments, I'm anti-choice. I think abortion should be mandatory for about 30 years." Erm...]

• Dong! Our Owen Jones has made a short film for the BBC explaining the continuing relevance of Karl Marx to, I think, Blue Peter viewers. Owen is taking part in the Bonfire Of Austerity action in Westminster this evening. Which clashes with the Million Mask March. [Update: Irony alert as media only report on the latter Anonymous protest to say a celebrity turned up! Luckily Russell Brand took off his mask so people knew who he was. Celebactivism? No thank you!].

Is 'queer' a word middle-class activists use that may alienate LGBT workers? Discuss.

• And finally, the US Senate has passed ENDA - the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. It's still perfectly legal to sack LGBT workers in most states in America, but this is a start towards stopping that. But why get angry about something that actually impacts on the lives of ordinary lesbians and gay men in your own country, when you can whine on about something less important in Russia?

Video Time 2: What's Love Got To Do With It?

All Out have made a predictably stupid and pukey video imagining What If A Gay Olympian Won At Sochi?
Well, I guess they've gotta spend all that money they get on something.
"The Russian government just made it a crime for gay people to show their love in public", the video claims, falsely.
All Out's press release admits this claim is untrue - or rather says it is "unclear" ie it's not what the new propaganda law actually says.
When there are so many anti-gay things going on in Russia, why say you're against something that hasn't happened?
The video imagines a female ice-skater who gets a gold medal but can't kiss her girlfriend in celebration.
Imagine if a gay man won an Olympic gold medal and thanked and embraced his boyfriend!
Just like Matthew Mitcham did in 2008, you mean?
US TV networks edited out all mentions of his then boyfriend, Lachlan Fletcher.
And what reassurance is the trite title and message here, Love Always Wins, when gay and bisexual men are being beaten up after being found through gay sex sites on the internet?
Similarly the new law against "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations to minors" - and the rhetoric behind it - seems most concerned with propagating the myth that gay men prey on kids.
It is a grave tactical error to reduce this campaign to gay love, when Russian homophobes keep going on about gay SEX.
If we base our arguments on mendacity, tomfoolery, and most of all on prudery - and willingly submitting to our castration as gay men - they have won.

Remember: If you think this short film is a load of silly old sentimental wank that only serves Western power, that means you DON'T CARE and are WORSE THAN HITLER!
All Out believe there is "an anti-gay war waging in Russia" right now.
Well, it's always good to keep things in perspective.
And if history has shown us there's one sure-fire way to stop a war, it's by asking people to click on an e-petition.
Or alternatively why not ask some celebrities to wear a crappy t-shirt?
That'll learn 'em!

PS Human Rights Campaign - America's largest/wealthiest gay organisation - has come up with the inspired "campaign" to get famous Americans to support LGBT Russians by wearing a t-shirt.
HRC have been given $3 million to spread the gay word across the world.
Scott Long writes on HRC and the Vulture Fund: Making Third World poverty pay for LGBT rights.

Sochi: You're Welcome

President Vladimir Putin, seeking to defuse criticism over his treatment of gay people in Russia, said everyone will be welcome in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

"We are doing everything, both the organisers and our athletes and fans, so that participants and guests feel comfortable in Sochi, regardless of nationality, race or sexual orientation" Putin told Thomas Bach, the head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), on Monday.

Reuters.

Wow, he really hates them gays, yeah.
This is almost exactly what Hitler used to say about the Jews!

PS Uh-oh, looks like those pointless and ridiculously overpaid gay people at All Out have done something else that's a bit pointless. Take that Putin!

Russia: The Modern Face Of Queer Protest

360,000 people click on a pointless All Out e-petition!
Only 200 turn up to Downing Street protest!
Was the low turnout because Stephen Fry wasn't there - or because Peter Tatchell was there?
Picture shows the publicity-shy Saint Peter straining to get his photo taken.

PS Fagburn has asked AllOut.org if they publish their accounts. No word yet...

Russia: Promoting Homophobia

Most papers today have given much coverage to the Russian Duma voting for a law banning "propaganda of non-traditional sexual values".
The bill defines this as "spreading the information in order to form non-traditional sexual desires in children, describing such relations as attractive, promoting the distorted understanding of social equality of traditional and non-traditional relations and also unwanted solicitation of information that could provoke interest to such relations."
It also "orders foreigners and people without citizenship to be expelled from Russia if found guilty of such a felony." (Russia Today).
The last part is instructive. 
Anti-gay politicians in Russia like to claim there is some evil Western plot to promote homosexuality there.
Ironic, as this new law could well have been "inspired" by our own Section 28.
Earlier this month, for example, an LGBT film festival in St Petersburg was fined 500,000 roubles and branded a "foreign agent", as it allegedly recieved funding from abroad. 
So President Putin and others can puff himself up and posture that he is some valiant soldier standing up to the West and valiantly fighting to save Mother Russia.
GRR!!!
So, the bit of silly clicktivism below from allout.org seems somewhat ill-thought out and counterproductive, don't you think?

PS Mind you, that's nothing compared to this well-meaning fuckwittery from Gay Star News arguing that the best way to stop Nigeria's latest anti-gay bill is to get the US to threaten to cut its aid!
  

Petitions: Well Fancy That!

'PinkNews.co.uk’s Edmund Broch explores how accurate the reliable the system is that appears to suggest that the Coalition for Marriage has amassed 400,000 signatures in opposition to the Government’s plans to allow gay couples to marry and asks ‘do their numbers add up?’'

Pink News, Sunday April 8th.

'An AllOut.org campaign to support Electronic Arts over its inclusion of gay characters in two recent video games has had to be suspended following hackers’ efforts to add thousands of fake signatures.'

Pink News, Wednesday April 11th.

Oops!

PS The Twitter account of America's National Organization For Marriage has been hacked by "radical homosexual activists". Tee hee...