Russia: How Could This Happen?

Police in St. Petersburg wouldn't allow controversial legislator Vitaly Milonov, best known for his anti-gay stance, to interfere with a gay pride march on May Day. He tried to stop the march on the grounds of a 'gay propaganda' law he himself sponsored.

An LGBT activists' column was part of Friday's massive rally, which marched along Nevsky Prospect, the city's main street. More than 90,000 people from all ranges of the political spectrum participated, from the ruling United Russia party to Communists and various small opposition groups.

Milonov along with a group of about a dozen of supporters tried to block the gay pride column, which was carrying rainbow flags and banners calling for tolerance, including one depiction of the politician himself.

He wanted to stop the activists, saying they were violating a controversial law he sponsored a few years ago, which bans propaganda of gay lifestyle to minors, and brought some minors among his supporters to make his case, the Fontanka newspaper reported.

His other complaint was about Ukrainian and American flags being carried by another part of the marching column allied with the LGBT activists...

Police officers guarding the rally were not impressed with the argument. They asked the lawmaker and his group to move aside and not provoke a conflict.

The discouraged MP and his group let the column pass and went after them, with police keeping the two separated. They went their separate ways eventually...

Russia Today - or as it is invariably called in the Western media ;'the state-funded Russia Today'.

Unlike our own BBC, of course.

Clearly this did not happen, as the same obedient Western media are always saying there is a total ban on all gay protests in Russia.

Ho hum...

The Gay Right: Whose Side Are You On?

This video has - as they say - gone "viral".
Unfeasibly right-wing gay Neocon Jamie Kirchick goes on Russia Today to talk about Bradley Manning's sentencing; "I'm not really interested in talking about Bradley Manning..."
Who knew? *
So what does our little Homocon want to talk about?
He launches into a hysterical, poorly informed - or rather willfully misinformed - rant about; "The horrific environment of homophobia in Russia right now...."
Zzzzz...
Much of the gay media are declaring him a "hero" - Kirchick that is, not Manning, obviously.
What? For wearing a pair of rainbow braces on TV!
Again, ask yourself why this issue is so animating the gay right - who here literally ignore what a great injustice their own beloved country has done to a gay man like Bradley Manning, to rant about Uncle Sam's mortal enemy, Russia?
Only the deeply indoctrinated could see this right-wing hijack as something to celebrate.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you thought control in a democratic society in action!

Funny! American journalist tried to disrupt @RT_comhttps://twitter.com/RT_com">@RT_com

> saying they lie about USA. And @cnnhttps://twitter.com/CNN">@cnn> does not lie about Russia?!— Nikolai Alexeyev (@n_alexeyev) August">https://twitter.com/n_alexeyev/statuses/370375714690039808">August 22, 2013

* Here Kerching argues the "traitor" Manning should fry in an electric chair. Which is nice.
Here's a panel debate on the boycott from Russia Today.
(Kirchick, laughably, claims RT has ignored this topic).
Against? A man from the Russian LGBT Sports Federation, a British gay journalist who lives in Russia, and two other Russian people who actually know what's happening in, err, Russia.
And for a boycott? Reactionary British lesbigot, Julie Bindel!
You really couldn't make it up.

Update: And finally... Eddie Mair takes on the architect of much of Russia's recent anti-gay laws, Vitaly Milonov. That's the way to do it etc etc. Listen here. 

Russia: Today

Gay hysterics in America protest Russian homophobia vs gay men in Russia who think it's all a bit dumb.

Hate Week (n.) week in which Oceanian citizens all attend rallies and parades to inflame hatred of Party enemies and heighten their efforts on behalf of Oceania. George Orwell, 1984.

Yes, I know Russia Today is part state-funded, so don't write in, but if you want to see propaganda at work ask yourself why American gay men are going mental over Russia, the big bogeyman, and Officially Declared Enemy of Uncle Sam, and not, say, one of the 70 countries where homosexuality is illegal.
Or protesting about their own country's 'special relationship' with so many other oppressive regimes that are down on queers?
Or demonstrating when the US keeps bombing, invading and occupying other countries?
Or why aren't we "Brits" boycotting American goods?
The most spectacular achievement of propaganda, of course, is when people can't see they live under a propaganda system.

“Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate."

Edward W Said.

PS First reader comment after Towleroad posted this video; "Tell that to the gay people that are tortured you stupid propaganda witch. AND most Americans feel that the USSR should have been bombed while we had the chance."
Not sure you've really thought this one through, dude.

Thanks to @Spitzenproudukte for the message from the guys at Grindr! This is madness.

Update: An Open Letter From Stephen Fry; "An absolute ban on the Russian Winter Olympics of 2014 on Sochi is simply essential. Stage them elsewhere in Utah, Lillyhammer, anywhere you like. At all costs Putin cannot be seen to have the approval of the civilised world." Emphasis added.
He also compares Putin to Hitler.
Though comparing the introduction of a law similar to our own not-so-distant Section 28 to the Holocaust seems something of an exaggeration.
And does it mean the Nazis could have been stopped by a boycott of Schnapps and the Berlin Olympics, and an e-petition?