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Google Doodle Upholds Gay Rights Ahead of Sochi Olympics
- coloncapitald 13y agoGoogle has been running a campaign for two years about gay rights and discouraging 'homophobia' (https://www.google.com/diversity/legalise-love.html https://www.google.com/diversity/legalise-love.html). Also, three main sponsors of Olympics including AT&T have also spoken out against Russian laws.
- ZoFreX 13y agoI'm curious. Why the scare quotes?
- theknown99 13y agoPerhaps because "homophobia" isn't a good word for it. Hitler wasn't a jewphobe.
- antimagic 13y agoWell, homophobia is generally supposed to be considered in the light of Yoda-ism "Fear leads to hate..."
- theknown99 13y agoVerging offtopic I guess but: As an example though, I'm not a pedophileaphobe - I'm not afraid of pedophiles. I think what they do is wrong. The number of people who are "afraid" of homosexuals is miniscule. Most people who you'd label "homophobic" actually just believe that homosexuality is wrong, not that it's scary. So the "homophobic" tag is pretty silly.
- James_Duval 13y agoThey are not scared of homosexuals, but of homosexuality. It represents a threat to set values and a set way of living to certain individuals. If it wasn't considered a threat to those values, why suppress it? It's homophobia.
- mrjj 13y agoas trivial aversion do
- lclarkmichalek 13y agoIt's a good word for it. It has an established meaning, it is universally understood, etc etc. The fundamental use of language is to communicate, and I don't really think homophobia fails in this respect. There are plenty of non-"good" words for other things in the English language that get used very often without people quoting them or complaining about their use.
- theknown99 13y agoIf you went around capturing and torturing spiders, would you be called an arachnophobe? It's just a bit silly. Yes, words get misused all the time, and English is imperfect, but this one just seems ridiculous to me.
- carlob 13y ago> Also, three main sponsors of Olympics including AT&T have also spoken out against Russian laws. "Spoken out", boohoo! So scary! They'd better put their money where their mouth is.
- bdfh42 13y agoIn passing and in contrast to Google I noticed that Yahoo's display of Dilbert cartoons at http://news.yahoo.com/comics/dilbert-slideshow/ http://news.yahoo.com/comics/dilbert-slideshow/ shows a different cartoon to the main Dilbert site http://www.dilbert.com/strips/ http://www.dilbert.com/strips/ for today. Is this an editorial decision or just a cock up do you think?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- emhart 13y agoMan, I was hoping it was a cock up, but having looked now, and looked through past days, I'm really doubting it. :\ EDIT 1: For ease of viewing I tossed the comparison up on imgur: http://imgur.com/kBHJ0eq http://imgur.com/kBHJ0eq EDIT 2: Squinting, it looks like they still have the 2-7-2014 date running in the gap between the 2nd & 3rd panel, but it's copyright is clearly from 1990-something. So, it's clearly intentional, I now wonder if it is Yahoo or S.A. himself providing the alternate.
- itchitawa 13y agoThey're probably just trying to be sensitive to their audience and sponsors. Google also censors pornography because a subset of users are offended by it.
- davidjgraph 13y ago> Google also censors pornography because a subset of users are offended by it. Censoring pornography doesn't infringe anyone's human rights.
- icebraining 13y agoWhy? Pornography is speech too.
- Shivetya 13y ago
- Eupolemos 13y agoI can't help but feel that Russia making homosexuality illegal is a simple troll-move. Have the world go ballistic, so noone will look at the things that are truly important (not saying gay rights aren't important, but in Russia it's less than a drop in the ocean). I think we're all feeding the troll.
- emocakes 13y agosince when did Russia make homosexuality illegal? It's still illegal in Texas. What Russia made illegal was promoting the, 'alternative lifestyle' to minors.
- evgen 13y agoHomosexuality has not been illegal in any manner in the US or any US state since the Lawrence v. Texas case in 2003, which overturned the last few state holdouts on this issue. And don't kid yourself about what some ignorant thugs in Russia have made illegal...
- emocakes 13y agohow progressive...
- malkung 13y agoHomosexuality stopped being illegal in Russia in 1993 (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A3%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B5_%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%BC%D1%83%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B6%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B0_%D0%B2_%D0%A0%D0%A1%D0%A4%D0%A1%D0%A0 http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A3%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%...).
- magicalist 13y agoMoreover, being homosexual was never illegal in the first place; it was sodomy laws that made gay sex (and, in many cases, any non-vaginal sex by anyone) a crime. These laws were used as tools to specifically target gay people, but I make the distinction because gay speech, the issue in Russia right now, has always been protected by the first amendment.
- justincormack 13y agoChannel 4 in the UK also has added the rainbow to its logo for the week, but Google didnt go as far, C4 have a "Gay Mountain" video too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6RID82Ru-k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6RID82Ru-k
- usaphp 13y agoHow does a law that bans gay propaganda to kids have anything to do with Olympics? They don't ban gay sportsmen or anything, I don't see why they are making such a big thing around it during the Olympics...has nothing to do with Olympics. I wonder if Olympics were held in USA this year, would those same magazines put NSA logos and colors all over their screen just to show that spying on own citizens is bad? Or would google put DO NOT TRACK logo on their doodle? I doubt...
- fuzzix 13y ago> "gay propaganda" What's that now? > "to kids" Ah, "think of the children", the rallying cry of the oppressor.
- science0854 13y agoScientists have yet to prove any genetic causes for homosexuality. Saying something is innate without any proof is quite misleading.
- fuzzix 13y agoStand up for your ludicrous opinion, please, Mr throwaway account.
- science0854 13y agoIt's not a ludicrous opinion because scientists have yet to determine any gene that causes homosexuality. I encourage you to Google yourself for research papers that definitively prove the causes for homosexuality. None exist.
- fuzzix 13y agoIt may not be genetic, but so what? It's a preference. As long as people with aligning sexual orientation can express this under conditions of consent, where's the problematic element? Where's the harmful or damaging part of this?
- kshatrea 13y agoIn India, the Supreme Court recently quashed an appeal and made homosexuality an illegal act under Section 377. Its reasoning was that it is the law that must be changed and therefore it was a legislative act that was required to quash what is an obviously discriminatory law. I applaud Google for their stand on Russia, but I question why they didn't do the same thing in India. Conspiracy theorists would say because Russia is a strategic foe of the USA and India is not. I am not in that camp, but I do find the question interesting.
- Grue3 13y agoBecause there's no Olympics in India right now?
- MisterWebz 13y agoWhich means we shouldn't care about people in India getting arrested because they're gay?
- matthewmacleod 13y agoNobody said that - it's a strawman.
- emhart 13y agoThis whole thread is a masterclass in falsely framing arguments.
- davidblueit 13y agothe background image for Google Now on my phone is also rainbow themed http://i.imgur.com/sgfXgvs.png http://i.imgur.com/sgfXgvs.png
- Fice 13y agoThe anti-gay laws are there not because the Russian government is homophobic. These laws were created to provoke reactions like this or http://youtu.be/0KWhaqr1v8s http://youtu.be/0KWhaqr1v8s which will help to turn some strata of the Russian population firmly against the West and prepare ground for the new Iron Curtain. Thank you Google for helping Putin!
- einhverfr 13y agoBut to be fair, Google isn't the only one doing stupid stuff like this. Read this piece slowly and see if you notice what I noticed: http://www.alternet.org/world/us-evangelicals-fueled-rise-russias-pro-family-right?page=0%2C2&paging=off¤t_page=1 http://www.alternet.org/world/us-evangelicals-fueled-rise-ru... What I noticed was that while the author was male, with the exception of Medvedev (whose position on abortion he didn't talk about), every politician he attacked in the Russian government on the abortion issue was a woman. Evidently Russian women (according to Alternet and The Nation) cannot be trusted with setting abortion policy: that role must fall to Western men....
- Geee 13y agoIf Google does something it isn't automatically on topic of 'hacker news'.. From HN guidelines: >Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon ... If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. ... >If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link.
- edoloughlin 13y agoTangentially related, but this is one of the most eloquent, simply stated views on the issue I've seen: http://www.buzzfeed.com/tomphillips/watch-an-irish-drag-queens-powerful-speech-about-homophobia http://www.buzzfeed.com/tomphillips/watch-an-irish-drag-quee...
- morsch 13y agoThat is stunningly good. What a powerful orator. Thank you for sharing.
- camus2 13y agoI bet they wont to the same with the World Cup and the United Arab Emirates ,too much oil there, hypocrites. And what about India? and all the other countries where homosexuality is a crime ?
- magicalist 13y ago> I bet they wont to the same with the World Cup and the United Arab Emirates ,too much oil there, hypocrites. Russia is the largest producer of oil in the world, smart guy. I don't imagine oil has a stranglehold on Google anyways. Maybe you have your angry phrases mixed up? For the rest: http://www.google.com/diversity/legalise-love.html http://www.google.com/diversity/legalise-love.html
- iaskwhy 13y agoThe discussion here is scary, very scary.
- emhart 13y agoAgreed. I'm miserably uncomfortable with the pseudo-social-science veneer being splashed around in the name of supporting the repression of a minority culture.
- Udo 13y agoIndeed. If einhverfr and usaphp and their fans do in fact represent the majority opinion of this site (which they apparently do), this makes HN a very uncomfortable place to be. It's for these reasons I prefer not to have political topics or anything regarding social injustice and religion on HN at all. I actually prefer not to know what most people here think of women, gay people, poor people, foreigners, atheists, you name it. The interesting thing is that those same people can appear completely reasonable and enjoyable to talk with in most contexts relevant to hackers. But every once in a while a topic like this one comes along and you discover that they believe homosexual propaganda is a thing, that persecuting homosexuals is a valid move to maximize reproduction, and that we should respect oppressive systems because of their culture.
- einhverfr 13y agoI get deeply uncomfortable when Google does something like this. In general I think it is easy to judge someone half a world away and it is very hard to get things right when looking across cultural barriers. I am going to give my perspective here as an American living in Indonesia and married to a Chinese-Indonesian. One of the key issues that nobody looks at when they talk about this is very distinctly a collective lifestyle choice: retirement living and who retirees live with. This is undoubtedly a collective lifestyle choice, and societies tend to fall in one of two groups: retire with the kids (the international norm) or retire with the spouse. This has tremendous implications for views on reproduction and hence sexuality. Not only is childlessness not a viable personal choice in retire-with-the-children cultures but same-sex couples can never have equality in such cultures. Even if you revert the controversial laws in Russia, they would be replaced with very binding social pressures that are not easily resisted. Part of the reason is that as soon as the norm is that people retire with the kids, and as soon as this expectation is set, then parents get (and find ways to make actionable) a legitimate interest in who their children marry. This means that parents effectively have something nearly like a veto power over childrens' spousal choices but that veto can be overridden by "accidental" pregnancy. This fact effectively dooms the notion of equal rights for same-sex couples in such cultures, and in the end one is, I think, forced either to recognize an equivalent to social security payments as a human right or concede that actual access to same-sex marriage is not one. Russia is in the retire-with-the-kids category, and as a result they have a strong interest in maintaining a sort of traditional family structure that has all but disappeared in Western Europe, the United States, Canada, etc, namely the multi-generation household. On the other hand, for cultures where the primary human contact in retirement is the spouse, then it is deeply unfair to deny people the choice of that relationship for whatever reason they want to spend that time with someone of the same sex (and the reason really is unimportant at that point). As an American living in another retire-with-the-kids culture, I will say that such systems work and work out well for everyone, but that isn't a reason to perpetuate gross unfairness in the US. So I stand in the awkward place of saying that most Western countries probably should look at legalizing same-sex marriage, but that a gay rights movement really would be deeply socially disruptive in a really bad way in much of the world (including Russia). Like it or not, if we ever succeeded in remaking the world in the American image, we'd destroy the planet. If you don't believe me, look at per capita greenhouse gas emissions.
- emhart 13y agoWhat is happening on this thread? Is this really a reflection of the community here at hn? I'm flabbergasted. Wake up, West coast, we need you!
- hamax 13y agoThis is embarrassing for the whole community. But I won't say it surprises me, I lost most of the hope while reading comments about anything gender related.
- ScottWhigham 13y agoThat's an interesting grammatical choice of the word "upholds" in the title, OP. When I read "gay rights" and "upholds" together, I start thinking about the law. My first thought when opening this thread was trying to understand what role Google had in upholding the laws related to gay rights (I was clearly wrong haha). But then I thought about it - maybe you meant "supports" but English isn't your first language? They are technically synonyms - support and uphold - but, in common usage when discussing things like this, I think most English-as-first-language speakers would have used the word "supports" to avoid confusion with legal bodies. Google Doodle Supports Gay Rights Ahead of Sochi Olympics
- chris_wot 13y agoIt appears this story has hit the flame filter.