This could upend Russia's brutal anti-gay crackdown

[Scooter]

Coca-Cola executives are just days away from deciding whether or not to speak out against Russia’s brutal new anti-gay laws -- and we need to show them the potential brand damage at stake if they stay silent.

Coke is a major sponsor of next year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The Olympics should be about celebrating all that is good in humanity. But instead, the Sochi Olympics risks being known for hatred and homophobia, due to a draconian new Russian anti-gay law that criminalizes even coming out of the closet.

So far, Coke has remained silent on Russia’s LGBT crackdown -- that's why we're joining with All Out to show Coke how many people want the company to speak out against this law. If we succeed, we can set off an earthshaking domino effect that pushes other international sponsors to follow.

This is the best shot we have at creating a billion-dollar problem for Russia that can ultimately push it to overturn its horrific anti-gay laws.

Tell Coca-Cola executives meeting this week to condemn Russia’s anti-gay laws and call for their repeal.

Russia's anti-gay law forbids anyone from "promoting non-traditional sexual relations'. In practice, this means anyone can be arrested and jailed for something as simple as coming out, wearing a rainbow pin, or demonstrating in public.

Mega-corporations like Coca-Cola have invested millions in sponsoring the Olympics and billions in their operations in Russia. In effect, Coca-Cola and others are bankrolling the Sochi Olympics. This gives them huge influence on the thinking of the International Olympic Committee and the Russian government.

It’s easy to think we can’t influence what’s happening in an authoritarian regime like President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. But Putin craves legitimacy and glory. If we can get the companies that are paying for his personal public relations exercise to step up and criticize this vicious anti-gay law, then Putin’s Olympic games are in trouble.

As a community, we’ve shown what can be achieved when we work together for LGBT rights. We’ve fought against transphobia in newspapers like the Daily Mail. Together, we persuaded Pepsi to fight against Uganda’s anti-gay law, and we ran a huge campaign to thank Starbucks for supporting marriage equality. We’re defending the most basic of all human rights: the right to life, the right to live free of unfair arrest, and the right to be yourself.

Tell Coca-Cola to support Russian LGBT people and condemn the brutal anti-gay law.

[Gob]

Signed. Next week we are having the worlds foremost gay author over for dinner, so I will be interested in his perspectives on this.

[dgs49]

"...brutal, anti-gay crackdown?"

Has anyone been prosecuted and convicted of private homosexual behavior? I thought the issue was openly promoting the homosexual lifestyle, i.e., marching in a gay-pride parade.

Please elucidate.

[MajGenl.Meade]

so I will be interested in his perspectives on this.

it'll just be a mystery until you tell us - maybe on on-line poll to see if we can guess? (I'm going for philosophical and patient opposition, pointing out that natural change occurs slowly and water wears down rocks). (If that's an option)

[rubato]

Who is, in Gobs opinion, the world's foremost gay author?


Literary accomplishment and homosexuality are so often correlated that would be a very difficult call to make.



yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

"...brutal, anti-gay crackdown?"

Has anyone been prosecuted and convicted of private homosexual behavior? I thought the issue was openly promoting the homosexual lifestyle, i.e., marching in a gay-pride parade.

Please elucidate.

Merely identifying oneself as gay, either explicitly (by so stating) or implicitly (e.g. by wearing a rainbow pin) is grounds for arrest. When you hear gay activists speaking about what it's like to be gay in Russia, they always speak in the third person, because to identify as "one of them" is to make oneself a target. Bands of thugs viciously attack those they believe to be gay with impunity, even boasting of their exploits by posting videos of their attacks online, because they know that the police will do nothing, except perhaps arrest the victim when he/she identifies him/herself as gay when explaining the motivation for the attack. Children are being removed from the care of their biological parents when it is discovered that they are gay or lesbian.

I get that you wish you could join those Russian thugs who are kicking the crap out of gay teens, and pissing and shitting in their mouths for good measure, but try to get what passes for your brain around the concept that freedom of speech isn't just for speech that you happen to agree with.

[rubato]

It will be interesting to see what happens. The increasingly dense economic network which ties together the international community provides a powerful lever for social change.


I think we should start a poll on what Putin's next move will be. If he's like the U.S. south he will blame "outside agitators" and claim that no one has to right to "interfere" in Russia's cultural traditions. There must be other options as well.

Will he play tough and try to get by without a key sponsor? Will he tell Coke to take a hike if they start making demands?

yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

If he's like the U.S. south he will blame "outside agitators" and claim that no one has to right to "interfere" in Russia's cultural traditions.

That would be the height of irony, because anti-gay crusaders from the U.S. like Scott Lively have been visiting Russia for years, whispering in the ears of religious and political leaders, and are now claiming credit for this series of legislation.

[rubato]

If he's like the U.S. south he will blame "outside agitators" and claim that no one has to right to "interfere" in Russia's cultural traditions.

That would be the height of irony, because anti-gay crusaders from the U.S. like Scott Lively have been visiting Russia for years, whispering in the ears of religious and political leaders, and are now claiming credit for this series of legislation.

Ironic but consistent.

US Christian "leaders" have created most of the recent upsurge of violent gay hatred in Africa.

Apparently when their desire to oppress and torture is thwarted at home they simply become missionaries of hatred rather than give it up.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

If he's like the U.S. south he will blame "outside agitators" and claim that no one has to right to "interfere" in Russia's cultural traditions.

That would be the height of irony, because anti-gay crusaders from the U.S. like Scott Lively have been visiting Russia for years, whispering in the ears of religious and political leaders, and are now claiming credit for this series of legislation.

Ironic but consistent.

US Christian "leaders" have created most of the recent upsurge of violent gay hatred in Africa.

Apparently when their desire to oppress and torture is thwarted at home they simply become missionaries of hatred rather than give it up.


yrs,
rubato

Oh yes, because anti-gay attitudes and brutal repression in general were unheard of in Russia and Africa before the American anti-gay types showed up....

[Big RR]

Repression? Certainly? Anti-gay attitudes--you tell me. I don't recall anything reaching these levels.

[Lord Jim]

Big RR, the idea that the Russian Duma enacted these laws because of the influence of some crackpot American minister is really beyond preposterous...

The Russian Duma is a wholly owned subsidiary of Putin Inc., (and has been for some time) and it doesn't make a single move without his blessings...

These anti-gay laws are part of a piece...

They're just the latest installment (one that he figures will be well received in many quarters because of the historical social conservatism of a vast portion of the Russian population) of a process of repression he has been engaged in since he took over from Boris Yeltsin in 2000...

anyone can be arrested and jailed for something as simple as coming out, wearing a rainbow pin, or demonstrating in public.

That is not right, and I'm certainly not going to defend it...

But the fact of the matter is that in Russia today, you can be arrested for "demonstrating in public" for any reason that displeases Putin's State...

Unless you manage to get at least 100,000 to turn out for the demonstration...

In which case Putin won't turn the machine guns on you, (unlike his little buddy in Syria, he's too clever for that) he'll just wait till it's over, and then have the leaders harassed, their assets seized, and have them arrested and tried on trumped up charges, or in some cases murdered...

Just as he has done to his political opponents and the opposition press...

Being an opponent of Vladimir Putin's, either in Russia, or in what his regime refers to as "the near abroad", (The other states of The Former Soviet Union...which the rest of the world refers to as "independent countries") is not a ticket to a long and prosperous life...

Your life insurance premiums go through the roof...

So it's hardly surprising that an autocratic former KGB thug who believes that "the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest disaster of the 20th Century" would find another target of opportunity to go after...(especially in tough economic times, which the Russians are also experiencing)

Personally, in addition to a petition calling upon Coca Cola to demand an end to these anti-gay laws, I would also like to see the petition demand:

1.An end to the muzzling of the opposition press...

2.An end to the harassment, arrest, (and in some cases murder) of opponents of the Putin Regime...

3. And oh yeah, a complete withdrawal of all Russian troops from Georgia...

[Long Run]

3. And oh yeah, a complete withdrawal of all Russian troops from Georgia...

Being based in Atlanta, Coca Cola should be especially in favor of this.

[Lord Jim]

ETA:

And let's not forget that Joe Stalin was a Georgia boy...

[Lord Jim]

Vladimir Putin is a clever, modernistic, and crafty man...(Could you imagine Leonid Brezhnev with his shirt off? I wouldn't want to... )

But he comes from the same stock....

[MajGenl.Meade]

Uhhhhhh...he said 'upend'...Uh huh huh huh

[Joe Guy]

Yeah....and 'crack down'.... huh huh huh...

[liberty]

I really don’t want to rain on scooter's parade, but I think that this is unlike to succeed. Putin is KGB the same kind of people that fought us to a stand still in Korea and politically defeated us in Vietnam. He is not likely to surrender to Coca Cola. He would be more likely to invade Georgia or at least to declare secret war on Coke. I say unless they threaten our freedom or vital national interest; we leave them alone and cooperate when possible.


Also, they don’t need any outside agitation; Homosexuality was one of the social crimes that would get one worked to death in a slave labor camp during the good old days.

[Scooter]

These anti-gay laws are part of a piece...

They're just the latest installment (one that he figures will be well received in many quarters because of the historical social conservatism of a vast portion of the Russian population) of a process of repression he has been engaged in since he took over from Boris Yeltsin in 2000...

Yes Jim, it is part of the same thing. The right to free speech, assembly and a free press had already been eroded for everyone. So the tactics you referred to that are used by the government to silence the voices they don't wish to have heard, were already being used against gay people to suppress their ability to speak and assemble. But now the government has added a legal prohibition against gay and gay-supportive speech and assembly in particular, to the point that it is now a crime for them to acknowledge their own existence. So yes, gays are being targeted with additional infringements on their basic freedoms over and above those that affect everyone else.

And I don't believe it will end there. A poll done this year showed that 43% of Russians believe gays should be removed from society in some way - from "isolation" to institutionalization to "liquidation". 43% in another poll believed homosexuality should be recriminalized. How long before Putin gets it in his head to establish a network of "reparative therapy clinics" in, say, the far reaches of Siberia? Which turn out to be old prison camps from the the Gulag era, so the mines and forests and factories have a source of slave labour again. All part of their "rehabilitation". And would probably be viewed as favourably as the "resettlement" of Jews was viewed in Germany in the 1930s and 40s.

Oh, and as to why almost 90% of Russians approve of these laws - 89% say they have no gay relatives or friends, so no surprise, but legislating gays back into the closet means those numbers will not move appreciably for decades, which was probably an intended result of passing these laws. I'm sure Scott Lively and the rest of his fundamentalist ilk who answered Putin's summons would have bemoaned the fact that increasing numbers of out gays in the U.S. served to relegate their viewpoint to the lunatic fringe.

I'm sure Putin wishes he could make speaking a crime for anyone who disagrees with him, but not even he would go that far, because that would irreparably undermine any illusion that Russians are any freer today than they were in the Soviet era. He believes he can get away with doing it to gays because they are viewed so unfavourably by most Russians

I suppose it's easier to discount the significance when it isn't your identity that someone is trying to obliterate, but I suspect the reaction would be quite different if the law prohibited saying "I am Christian" or "I am a husband and father" publicly, or prohibited wearing a cross or a wedding band or putting pictures of your kids on your desk at work. Somehow I don't think "oh well, it's just Putin being Putin" would be the response.