Russian Lawmakers Propose Legislation To Criminalize Coming Out As Gay

Things keep getting worse for LGBT people in Russia.

Two years after the country banned so-called “gay propaganda,” some Russian lawmakers want to amend the prohibition by making the act of coming out a crime.

Under the proposed amendment, those with “non-traditional sexual orientation” could be fined for “demonstrating [their] own expressed sexual preferences in public places,” Newsweek reports. If they were to do so in schools, cultural establishments or government buildings, they could face up to 15 days in jail.

The two Communist lawmakers behind the proposal, Ivan Nikitchuk and Nikolay Arefievay, say the 2013 gay propaganda ban doesn’t go far enough:

“I believe that the problem we have raised is one of the most pressing and topical issues as it addresses the social ills of our society and deals with the moral education of the next generation,” Nikitchuk told Izvestia. “In the biological sense, not reproducing is the same as death and in that sense homosexuality is a lethal threat for the whole of humankind.”

“I think that the problem is acute and urgent because it concerns the social diseases of our society and the moral upbringing of the younger generation. Unfortunately, the mechanism suggested in the 2013 law ‘On the protection of children against the information that harms their health and development’ has proved to be ineffective and this prompted us to develop new measures.”

In an explanation attached to the amendment, Nikitchuk and Arefievay cite stricter laws against homosexuality in the Soviet Union and in ancient times. From the English-language news channel RT:

“In Athens during the classical period homosexuals had to report their vice to the people’s assembly and got stripped of their civil rights. Those who tried to conceal it were either exiled or executed. The laws of Ancient Sparta were even stricter – there were no reports, anyone who got caught was executed,” read the explanations attached to the bill.

In fact, public opposition to homosexuality has increased in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. In a recent poll, 37 percent said LGBT people should be “isolated from society,” an increase from 28 percent who thought this in 1989, Newsweek reports. Twenty-one percent said they wanted to “liquidate” LGBT people.

However, the infamous author of the original gay propaganda ban, Vitaly Milonov, opposes the amendment, according to RT. Milonov says coming out is already prohibited under his gay propaganda ban. One Russian gay activist, Maria Bast, said she doesn’t believe the amendment will pass because Russia is trying to restore relations with the European Union.

The post Russian Lawmakers Propose Legislation To Criminalize Coming Out As Gay appeared first on Towleroad.

John Wright

Russian Lawmakers Propose Legislation To Criminalize Coming Out As Gay

PHOTOS: Home Is Where One Begins

Christopher Harrity

www.advocate.com/photography/2015/10/24/photos-home-where-one-begins

Open Question: Does This Make Me A Homophobic (LGBT)?
I am a 25 year old woman and am lesbian but i dont actually like any LGBT actors, does that make me a homophobe?

Here is my top 10 favourite actors

Marlon Brando
Robert De Niro
Al Pacino
Humphrey Bogart
Max Von Sydow
Dustin Hoffman
Michael Caine
Clark Gable
Patrick Stewart
Sean Connery

I like film

Clark Gable

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20151024063902AAEb64d

15 Years After Coming Out, I Met The Gay Uncle I Never Knew

Having a gay relative has got to be every young gay guy’s dream, although I had no clue that I had gay uncle that has been living in San Francisco since 1988. Which is a bummer; I can only imagine how great it would have been to know that I had a queer uncle in the gayest city in the world.

Complicated family dynamics prevented me from even knowing of his existence until five years ago, and this New Yorker wasn’t able to make the cross-country trek to meet him… until now.

After completing my media studies at Columbia University this year, I was selected to participate in the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association’s Student Connect Program in San Francisco. I decided to use the opportunity to produce a video that would document the meeting.

I approached the day with trepidation.

This is what happened.

Rob Smith is a multimedia journalist and author of Closets, Combat and Coming Out: Coming of Age as a Gay Man in the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Army.  He lives in New York City.

This piece was produced with the support and guidance of the NLGJA Connect Program. For more information and to see samples of other work produced during the convention, visit the website.

Rob Smith

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/_MBoGHsOkBM/15-years-after-coming-out-i-met-the-gay-uncle-i-never-knew-20151024

So I'm probably more attracted to men than women for the first time in my life… what do I do now? [M21]

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So I’m probably more attracted to men than women for the first time in my life… what do I do now? [M21]
byu/1208throwaway inlgbt

Gus Kenworthy is a Shirtless ‘Mean Girls’ Slut Mouse for Halloween – Duh!

Olympic freeskier Gus Kenworthy, who came out of the closet this week in a brave, emotional and revealing ESPN interview, immediately cementing himself as the gay world’s imaginary boyfriend for a week, is still giving.

RELATED: Gus Kenworthy is a God Among Olympians and Here are the Photos to Prove It

Last night he posted a photo to social media from a Halloween party where he was wandering around without a shirt and offered up a completely reasonable explanation (not that he needed one) for his get-up.

Writes Kenworthy:

“Halloween costume party at @theeveryhostess & @wowjeremym‘s house tonight! *Insert applicable Mean Girls quote here: ‘Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it. The hardcore girls just wear lingerie and some form of animal ears… I’m a mouse. Duh!’”

And for reference:

RELATED: Olympic Freeskier Gus Kenworthy: ‘I’m Gay’

The post Gus Kenworthy is a Shirtless ‘Mean Girls’ Slut Mouse for Halloween – Duh! appeared first on Towleroad.

Andy Towle

Gus Kenworthy is a Shirtless ‘Mean Girls’ Slut Mouse for Halloween – Duh!

QUEERTY QUERY: How Much Sex Have You Been Having Lately?

How much sex have you been having lately? How many pumpkin spice lattes have you consumed in the past 30 days? Do you have 60 seconds to spare?

Queerty is collecting anonymous data from our readers regarding their sex lives and the popular seasonal delight pumpkin spice lattes. You must be 18 years or older to participate in our groundbreaking survey.

Fill out our eight question survey below and stay tuned for the results.

Graham Gremore

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Hillary Clinton Supports Her Husband's 'Defensive Action' as President

Hillary Clinton does not seem to see passage of the Defense of Marriage Act or the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policies of the ’90s as mistakes. Rather, they were types of “defensive action,” she told Rachel Maddow during a lengthy interview on Friday night.

When asked directly whether she differs from her husband Bill Clinton — who is responsible for legislation that stopped same-sex couples from marrying and banned LGBT people from open service in the military — Hillary Clinton characterized them as necessary steps.

“I’m not in any way excusing them. I’m explaining them,” she said.

Maddow had asked a question that’s been on her mind and that of other LGBT Americans for a long time. (“I have wanted to ask Hillary Clinton that question for years now,” Maddow later told viewers.)

First, Maddow pointed out that “the civil rights achievements of this administration have actually been undoing things that were done in the Clinton administration.” She listed the Defense of Marriage Act and “don’t ask, don’t tell” as legislation that “did a lot of harm for a very long time.” And she asked, “I know that you and President Clinton are different people, and I know that you’re not responsible for what he did as president. But is your approach to civil rights issues the same as his, or is it different?”

While Clinton didn’t answer the question directly, she portrayed herself in alignment with her husband. And Clinton said she wasn’t merely an observer as first lady. “I was in on some of those discussions, on both ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and on DOMA, where both the president, his advisers and occasionally I would – you know — chime in and talk about, ‘You can’t be serious. You can’t be serious.'”

Clinton described the Defense of Marriage Act, which banned the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, as a way of stopping a larger effort she said was underway to pass an amendment to the Constitution that would have banned same-sex marriage. Clinton called DOMA “a line that was drawn that was to prevent going further.” 

“On Defense of Marriage, I think what my husband believed – and there was certainly evidence to support it — is that there was enough political momentum to amend the Constitution of the United States of America, and that there had to be some way to stop that,” she told Maddow. 

To be clear, though, neither she or her husband publicly supported full marriage equality at the time. Both favor it now.

Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic primary for president, Bernie Sanders, was in Congress when the Clinton administration passed DOMA. But he voted against it. 

Sanders also came out for marriage equality long before Clinton. And he voted against “don’t ask, don’t tell” back in 1993.

Clinton described DADT as an “astonishing overreaction” by the military and members of Congress to her husband’s 1992 campaign pledge to let gays and lesbians serve openly. “It’s what he intended to do,” Clinton said. 

“I remember being on the edge of one of those conversations, and so ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ again, became a defensive line,” she said. That compromise policy let gays and lesbians remain in the military but also led to thousands of dishonorable discharges for those who didn’t remain closeted or were outed.

In a speech earlier this month at the Human Rights Campaign, Clinton promised to retroactively upgrade the discharges of those who had been kicked out of the military. But also in that speech, Clinton didn’t apologize for the harm those policies did to LGBT Americans’ lives. The interview with Maddow shows that while Clinton doesn’t like the policies, and supported reversing them, she also doesn’t see them as mistakes.

The bottomline answer to Maddow’s question — of whether Hillary Clinton would approach civil rights in the same way as Bill Clinton did as president — appears to be, yes, President Hillary Clinton would compromise on civil rights if necessary.

Clinton expects that as president she will, like her husband, have to make “the least bad choice.” 

“I think that sometimes, as a leader in a democracy, you are confronted with two bad choices,” she told Maddow, after defending her husband’s crime bill, which led to mass incarceration. “And it is not an easy position to be in, and you have to try to think, OK, what is the least bad choice and how do I try to cabin this off from having worse consequences?”

Watch the exchange with Maddow below:

Lucas Grindley

www.advocate.com/election/2015/10/23/hillary-clinton-supports-her-husbands-defensive-action-president