5 ms·

A bit offtopic but the recent "Russian anti-gay law" media coverage is as credible as this hacking story: http://www.blacklistednews.com/The_Olympics_of_Hate_in

by osipov 13y ago

A bit offtopic but the recent "Russian anti-gay law" media coverage is as credible as this hacking story: http://www.blacklistednews.com/The_Olympics_of_Hate_in_a_Nation_of_Anti-Gay_Laws%3F_/32494/0/38/38/Y/M.html http://www.blacklistednews.com/The_Olympics_of_Hate_in_a_Nat...

chimeracoder 13y ago
That analysis isn't entirely accurate either. For example: > Since 1993 gay sex was made legal in Russia, in 12 US States gay sex is a crime. The law is still on the books, but ever since Lawrence v. Texas[0], gay sex is legal in all 50 states (and all US territories). They're on the books simply because of inertia - there's no impetus to pass a new law repealing a law that's already been invalidated. Others include: > In Russia you cannot be fired from your job for being an LGBT individual, in the United States you can This depends highly on the state. Some states even protect transgender individuals. Also, comparing Russia's laws to the US's laws is inherently flawed. For example, I could mention that Iran conducts more sex reassignment operations than any other country in the entire world, except Thailand![1] But before we go ahead and praise Iran for being progressive with regard to transgender rights, let's understand that they do this because they assume that homosexuality and being trans are the same thing, and the government pays for forced gender reassignment of gay people[2]. So it's very easy to make the US look bad in comparison to other countries, especially since the US is more federated than many other countries (ie, states have more leeway), and the US is larger (so it's easier to cherry-pick examples). But that doesn't mean the US is actually worse. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v_texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v_texas [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexuality_in_Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexuality_in_Iran [2] There's some subtlety to this (we could debate the exact nature of the word "forced"), but that's basically how it works.
- impendia 13y ago
  > there's no impetus to pass a new law repealing a law that's already been invalidated. Well... in 2000 (!), Alabama repealed its laws against interracial marriage, which had been invalidated in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia. http://www.salon.com/2001/03/08/sollors/ http://www.salon.com/2001/03/08/sollors/
  - pc86 13y ago
    And the reason it took until 2000 was inertia. It was a completely symbolic repeal of a law nobody had enforced for some time. I’m not sure what your point here is. EDIT: Grammar.
- victoro 13y ago
  > it's easier to cherry-pick examples Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, the US was a highly segregated country mostly because of "cherry picked" examples from the deep south. Federal law exists in part to put the entire country on the same page with respect to basic liberties. Its not OK for me to have more freedom of speech in California than in Texas, so why should it be OK for an LGBT individual to have more basic human rights in one state than in another?
  - smsm42 13y ago
    The current debate is exactly about the question if the basic human rights are violated or not. As soon as this would be resolved - I mean legally, having an opinion on that is not enough, for enforcement you need laws - if it would be resolved that some laws violate the basic human rights of LGBT people it would provide the basis for making them void. So far the court only decided that the federal laws banning same-sex marriage are violating the rights of the citizens. They did not decide that recognizing same-sex marriage is a basic human right though, and since the text of the Constitution is also mum on this question, it would require a separate court decision to have federal enforcement of such rights, if recognized. However not having such decision is in no way comparable with limitations of freedom of expression instituted in Russia. It's one thing to complain that the federal government does not force states to recognize same-sex marriage, especially if it doesn't even have a legal basis to do so right now, and another thing is to prosecute people for opening support centers for gay youth or for debating the topic of sexual relationships and freedoms in public.
  - tuxracer 13y ago
    Because LGBT is not a federally protected class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class
    - auctiontheory 13y ago
      Begging the question.
      - 13y ago
- mercurial 13y ago
  > This depends highly on the state. Some states even protect transgender individuals. Are you seriously saying that you can legally fire somebody for being gay in some US states? Wouldn't you get sued for discrimination if you did that?
  - auctiontheory 13y ago
    Are you seriously saying that you can legally fire somebody for being gay in some US states? Yes. I'm surprised that you're surprised. Under Obama the tide has definitely turned in favor of gay rights, but gay people are still very far from being equally protected under the law nationwide. And if the next US President is a Republican, many Obama-era gay rights advances might very well be rolled back.
    - mercurial 13y ago
      I'm European, this might explain my surprise. My understanding was that employers were usually very careful to avoid lawsuits for wrongful termination when firing people. I had not understood that in some places, discrimination against people with the wrong sexual orientation is fair game, while discrimination against people with the wrong skin colour isn't.
      - jedrek 13y ago
        Not to mention that most states have moved to at will employment, which means that you can be fired for no reason.
        beagle3 13y ago
        But "at will" means you can be fired for any reason except if the reason is "being in a protected class". Those include pregnant women, for examples. It is so ridiculous it is funny. In the US, the law guarantees NO paid maternity leave, but you can't fire a pregnant lady. So, as soon as she gives birth, you can stop paying her (but not fire her), and then, two weeks after she comes back from maternity leave, you can fire her (because she is no longer in a protected class). So, basically, all this protection amounts to is ... about two extra weeks of severance. US is pretty sad when it comes to labour law and employee rights - and most people living in the US are somehow under the illusion that it is better for them. Does anyone know if sexual preference or sexual orientation is a recognized protected class?
- varjag 13y ago
  > In Russia you cannot be fired from your job for being an LGBT individual This is entirely incorrect, you sure as hell can and good luck finding a judge overruling it. There are polygraph companies in Moscow that help out gays to employers, and they are completely open about it.
  - aestra 13y ago
    Too bad polygraphs are pseudoscience. http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/225/do-polygraphs-lie-detectors-work http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/225/do-polygraph... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph
    - dandelany 13y ago
      Too bad the kind of people who give polygraphs to root out and fire the gay people in their company don't give a shit about the science (or lack thereof) of polygraph tests.
    - drdaeman 13y ago
      Welcome to Russia. Even army, schools and universities use quackery like polygraphs and Voll/Schimmel EAP to "detect drug users." - http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Ffunction.mil.ru%2Fnews_page%2Fcountry%2Fmore.htm%3Fid%3D11767532%40egNews http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=... - http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fskn.gov.ru%2Fincludes%2Fperiodics%2Freview%2F2011%2F0426%2F055812379%2Fdetail.shtml http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=... (no direct link to paragraph, search for "Voll")
      - varjag 13y ago
        Well, polygraphs, while not providing undeniable proofs, give statistically significant results. U.S. govt agencies use them widely as part of security clearance.
mikeash 13y ago
What's your agenda? Your comment history is pretty much nothing but this topic. If you think it's so important, submit it to the front page. When it inevitably gets flagged or sinks into oblivion, then you might realize that this is Hacker News, not Russian LGBT News.
- supergauntlet 13y ago
  Yeah, fuck those stupid gay people, there's no overlap between hacker and LGBT circles! Who cares about something that affects a part of our community, majority rules!
  - mikeash 13y ago
    What part of that semi-coherent rant is supposed to make it OK to jump into every comment thread about Russia and post the same unrelated article?
    - Semiapies 13y ago
      Especially when the person doing so is trying to whitewash Russia's mistreatment of gay people...
redthrowaway 13y ago
No, no it isn't. This seems to be your cause celebre. I suspect you're either paid to comment, or are jsut a very disturbed individual.
gadders 13y ago
I agree. Russia is the gayest country going. http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/russia-just-so-gay-2013081678730 http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/russia-just...
fiddlediddle 13y ago
Hey man I actually went and read that paper you posted the other day: bullshit-alarm went off louder at every page. It's all ad-hominems, "look, America is also bad," unverifiable facts and hearsay. If it is actually true (the anti-"Russian anti-gay laws" movement is overblown in Western media), and if you believe that it is true, then you would do better to stop posting this. You are only doing that cause a disservice by looking untrustworthy. Everything about your posts and the thing you linked to smells of astroturf. Been lurking on HN for half a year now, I guess this is what finally gets me to sign up.

by osipov 13y ago

chimeracoder 13y ago

That analysis isn't entirely accurate either. For example: > Since 1993 gay sex was made legal in Russia, in 12 US States gay sex is a crime. The law is still on the books, but ever since Lawrence v. Texas[0], gay sex is legal in all 50 states (and all US territories). They're on the books simply because of inertia - there's no impetus to pass a new law repealing a law that's already been invalidated. Others include: > In Russia you cannot be fired from your job for being an LGBT individual, in the United States you can This depends highly on the state. Some states even protect transgender individuals. Also, comparing Russia's laws to the US's laws is inherently flawed. For example, I could mention that Iran conducts more sex reassignment operations than any other country in the entire world, except Thailand![1] But before we go ahead and praise Iran for being progressive with regard to transgender rights, let's understand that they do this because they assume that homosexuality and being trans are the same thing, and the government pays for forced gender reassignment of gay people[2]. So it's very easy to make the US look bad in comparison to other countries, especially since the US is more federated than many other countries (ie, states have more leeway), and the US is larger (so it's easier to cherry-pick examples). But that doesn't mean the US is actually worse. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v_texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v_texas [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexuality_in_Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexuality_in_Iran [2] There's some subtlety to this (we could debate the exact nature of the word "forced"), but that's basically how it works.

impendia 13y ago
> there's no impetus to pass a new law repealing a law that's already been invalidated. Well... in 2000 (!), Alabama repealed its laws against interracial marriage, which had been invalidated in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia. http://www.salon.com/2001/03/08/sollors/ http://www.salon.com/2001/03/08/sollors/
- pc86 13y ago
  And the reason it took until 2000 was inertia. It was a completely symbolic repeal of a law nobody had enforced for some time. I’m not sure what your point here is. EDIT: Grammar.
victoro 13y ago
> it's easier to cherry-pick examples Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, the US was a highly segregated country mostly because of "cherry picked" examples from the deep south. Federal law exists in part to put the entire country on the same page with respect to basic liberties. Its not OK for me to have more freedom of speech in California than in Texas, so why should it be OK for an LGBT individual to have more basic human rights in one state than in another?
- smsm42 13y ago
  The current debate is exactly about the question if the basic human rights are violated or not. As soon as this would be resolved - I mean legally, having an opinion on that is not enough, for enforcement you need laws - if it would be resolved that some laws violate the basic human rights of LGBT people it would provide the basis for making them void. So far the court only decided that the federal laws banning same-sex marriage are violating the rights of the citizens. They did not decide that recognizing same-sex marriage is a basic human right though, and since the text of the Constitution is also mum on this question, it would require a separate court decision to have federal enforcement of such rights, if recognized. However not having such decision is in no way comparable with limitations of freedom of expression instituted in Russia. It's one thing to complain that the federal government does not force states to recognize same-sex marriage, especially if it doesn't even have a legal basis to do so right now, and another thing is to prosecute people for opening support centers for gay youth or for debating the topic of sexual relationships and freedoms in public.
- tuxracer 13y ago
  Because LGBT is not a federally protected class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class
  - auctiontheory 13y ago
    Begging the question.
    - 13y ago
mercurial 13y ago
> This depends highly on the state. Some states even protect transgender individuals. Are you seriously saying that you can legally fire somebody for being gay in some US states? Wouldn't you get sued for discrimination if you did that?
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  Are you seriously saying that you can legally fire somebody for being gay in some US states? Yes. I'm surprised that you're surprised. Under Obama the tide has definitely turned in favor of gay rights, but gay people are still very far from being equally protected under the law nationwide. And if the next US President is a Republican, many Obama-era gay rights advances might very well be rolled back.
  - mercurial 13y ago
    I'm European, this might explain my surprise. My understanding was that employers were usually very careful to avoid lawsuits for wrongful termination when firing people. I had not understood that in some places, discrimination against people with the wrong sexual orientation is fair game, while discrimination against people with the wrong skin colour isn't.
    - jedrek 13y ago
      Not to mention that most states have moved to at will employment, which means that you can be fired for no reason.
      - beagle3 13y ago
        But "at will" means you can be fired for any reason except if the reason is "being in a protected class". Those include pregnant women, for examples. It is so ridiculous it is funny. In the US, the law guarantees NO paid maternity leave, but you can't fire a pregnant lady. So, as soon as she gives birth, you can stop paying her (but not fire her), and then, two weeks after she comes back from maternity leave, you can fire her (because she is no longer in a protected class). So, basically, all this protection amounts to is ... about two extra weeks of severance. US is pretty sad when it comes to labour law and employee rights - and most people living in the US are somehow under the illusion that it is better for them. Does anyone know if sexual preference or sexual orientation is a recognized protected class?
varjag 13y ago
> In Russia you cannot be fired from your job for being an LGBT individual This is entirely incorrect, you sure as hell can and good luck finding a judge overruling it. There are polygraph companies in Moscow that help out gays to employers, and they are completely open about it.
- aestra 13y ago
  Too bad polygraphs are pseudoscience. http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/225/do-polygraphs-lie-detectors-work http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/225/do-polygraph... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph
  - dandelany 13y ago
    Too bad the kind of people who give polygraphs to root out and fire the gay people in their company don't give a shit about the science (or lack thereof) of polygraph tests.
  - drdaeman 13y ago
    Welcome to Russia. Even army, schools and universities use quackery like polygraphs and Voll/Schimmel EAP to "detect drug users." - http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Ffunction.mil.ru%2Fnews_page%2Fcountry%2Fmore.htm%3Fid%3D11767532%40egNews http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=... - http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fskn.gov.ru%2Fincludes%2Fperiodics%2Freview%2F2011%2F0426%2F055812379%2Fdetail.shtml http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=... (no direct link to paragraph, search for "Voll")
    - varjag 13y ago
      Well, polygraphs, while not providing undeniable proofs, give statistically significant results. U.S. govt agencies use them widely as part of security clearance.

mikeash 13y ago

What's your agenda? Your comment history is pretty much nothing but this topic. If you think it's so important, submit it to the front page. When it inevitably gets flagged or sinks into oblivion, then you might realize that this is Hacker News, not Russian LGBT News.

supergauntlet 13y ago
Yeah, fuck those stupid gay people, there's no overlap between hacker and LGBT circles! Who cares about something that affects a part of our community, majority rules!
- mikeash 13y ago
  What part of that semi-coherent rant is supposed to make it OK to jump into every comment thread about Russia and post the same unrelated article?
  - Semiapies 13y ago
    Especially when the person doing so is trying to whitewash Russia's mistreatment of gay people...

redthrowaway 13y ago

No, no it isn't. This seems to be your cause celebre. I suspect you're either paid to comment, or are jsut a very disturbed individual.

gadders 13y ago

I agree. Russia is the gayest country going. http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/russia-just-so-gay-2013081678730 http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/russia-just...

fiddlediddle 13y ago

Hey man I actually went and read that paper you posted the other day: bullshit-alarm went off louder at every page. It's all ad-hominems, "look, America is also bad," unverifiable facts and hearsay. If it is actually true (the anti-"Russian anti-gay laws" movement is overblown in Western media), and if you believe that it is true, then you would do better to stop posting this. You are only doing that cause a disservice by looking untrustworthy. Everything about your posts and the thing you linked to smells of astroturf. Been lurking on HN for half a year now, I guess this is what finally gets me to sign up.