Russia has been making headlines recently because of their deranged policy on LGBT rights inside of the country.
In June, as everyone is probably aware of by now, Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, signed into legislation a bill that banned “nontraditional sexual relations” and “gay propaganda towards minors.” The world is certainly watching what will happen in terms of the policy once athletes and tourists start to enter the country for the Olympic Games in Sochi come 2014.
However, Putin has made it clear that he stands by the policy, all the while the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said that athletes and spectators to the Games will not be subject to the rules. The United States is looking at interfering with this policy, which will be the first time the United States would step in and try to bring peace to the rights of LGBT people in another country.
But somehow, one country making public headlines for their inherent, brutal mistreatment of LGBT people wasn’t enough. India has proposed a law that criminalizes being gay in the country. This is somehow more of a slap in the face than what Russia decided to sign into law.
One thing countries around the world (including ours in some cases) fail to realize is that gay people will still exist whether they try and “ban and criminalize” them or not. This is a failure to understand the many intricate builds of human beings and a lack of wanting to understand something that appears outside of their comfort zone.
There is a deep-seated hatred with how much of the world treats LGBT people, as if by some unquestionable law we are in the wrong. Though even with this being the case, there are countries like Luxembourg, the US (in some places), England, Wales, and New Zealand that all have signed into action a same-sex marriage bill.
These are all steps forward towards equality, but countries like Russia and India are gigantic steps backwards. Maybe I’m wrong, but whether or not gay people are criminalized and “banned”, we will still exist and we’ll still be in relationships. You can’t erase a group of people by simply signing a bill stating that it is against the law to be so. It’s a political genocide, creating legislation to make it okay to hate LGBT people in each country.
Currently in the United States, 16 states already allow same-sex marriage and same-sex marriage is now recognized on a federal-level (thanks to DOMA being knocked down in June), and 16 countries worldwide recognize the union between same-sex couples as marriage.
So, thusly, same-sex marriage is happening around the world.
Have these despondently ignorant world leaders – leaders who believe same-sex marriage is a detriment to marriages that already exist between a man and a woman – experienced any rifts in their marriage?
Has the communications between them and their spouses decreased and ended in more arguments than before gay people were getting married?
Have their marriages suffered more arguments and are they closer to divorce?
Same-sex marriage doesn’t end or invalidate or taint current marriages. It bares no effect on the marriages of others; the affects of same-sex marriage on current marriages between heterosexual couples is merely psychological, which speaks of a huge issue with the people who feel same-sex marriage will hurt the marriage between a man and a woman.
Wake up, Russia. Wake up, India. I invite you to join 2013 – and by extension, 2014 – and realize that it’s fundamentally ludicrous that there are still laws that ban or criminalize LGBT people. We’re here, and will be here, regardless if you sign a policy against it or not.
Ian Proegler
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[…] with Russia, and its banning of “gay propaganda” specifically around minors, and now India with their criminalizing of gay people as a principle, Australia has now jumped on […]