Moscow World Athletics Marred By Medieval Anti-Gay Legislation

Here we go again. Another international sporting event tainted by bigotry and ignorance and once again we are left with the dilemma of how to react. A boycott automatically comes to mind but by adopting that tactic, every international sporting event on the planet would have to be boycotted, for which country on earth can declare itself free of prejudice and injustice. We could equally just shrug our shoulders and resign ourselves to the obvious fact that the world is a bigoted, ignorant and cruelly unjust place. Global sporting events just may help to break down a few barriers so let’s just get on with it.

A third practical option is to participate and protest. In the case of Moscow’s recent barbaric anti-gay legislation, that could involve every athlete and every spectator wearing a pink rosette or some such emblem showing contempt for the recently declared diktat against gay ‘propaganda’, and publicly ridiculing Putin and his compliant MP’s for their medieval attitudes. Either way, with the Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup heading to Russia in the very near future, Moscow’s reactionary legislation is a bloody outrage to the concept of modernity.

The situation is made worse when one remembers that just under one hundred years ago Bolshevik women were free to advocate some of the most radical ideas concerning human co-habitation. The state and the church were told unambiguously to keep their patriarchal snouts out of the bedroom. The family was seen as an instrument for women’s subjugation and social control. Millennia of religious inspired bigotry towards homosexuality were to be swept away. Homosexuality was decriminalised.

I don’t think the Bolshevik party under Lenin’s leadership had a problem with this revolutionary outlook but certainly by the time Comrade Stalin got his feet firmly under the table such powerfully revolutionary ideas were definitely off the agenda. State funded free childcare, equality of employment legislation and abortion on demand remained in place, but most other radical ideas were consigned to the distant future. Homosexuality was recriminalised and became the subject for a psychiatric cure. Paradoxically, the Soviet Union was both at the same time the most radical place on earth and still one of the most conservative. Putin’s anti-gay legislation merely continues that reactionary narrative.

The most depressing thing about Putin’s recent legislation is its scientific backwardness. We can deplore but partially understand when traditional African nations come up with their anti-gay nonsense, but when a supposedly modern Russia, itself a product of an atheistically and scientifically grounded Soviet Union, forces this religiously inspired reactionary drivel through their parliament, you can only shake your head in despair. But of course that is not enough. After the despair must come anger and action. It is beyond scientific doubt that homosexuality is not some deviant lifestyle choice but a healthy, integral part of human diversity, to be regarded as no more significant than left-handedness or freckles. To legislate against gayness is as absurd as legislating against tall people. Most of Europe gets this now, but Putin, for narrow political advantage, chooses to play the bigots card.

Of course Russia is not alone in its feudalistic backwardness. Huge swathes of the population in the United States are in thrall to a similar ideology peddled daily by the religious right At least Russia hasn’t attacked the right to a free abortions yet, though of course, once reaction gets a free ride other things are sure to follow. Here in Britain we have made huge strides in normalising homosexuality. We have further still to go, but much of the stigma and most of the criminality associated with the LGBT community has been removed. These days we content ourselves with demonising immigrants, asylum seekers and benefit claimants.

So with the World Athletics Championships imminent, the choice remains; to boycott, to shrug or to participate but collectively protest. Of the three options the latter seems the one most likely to yield some results.

Be the first to comment on "Moscow World Athletics Marred By Medieval Anti-Gay Legislation"

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.


*