Hulka: Therefore, in either case, to say homosexuality is “normal” is wrongheaded.
Look, I am not arguing for the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality. I am not arguing that the situation of homosexuals is the same as racial minorities or women.
But what I am saying is that homosexuals have the same right as anyone else to gather peacefully and lawfully advocate changes to the law or to society. This isn't a special right, it's a basic right of every human being.
Do we, as FReepers, really like the idea of government that shuts down speech because it is unpopular and controversial? It's not the worst abuse of government power ever but it's not something we should admire.
As much as murderers, rapists, pedophiles (which homosexuality overlaps), adulterers, and philanderers, have the right to "peacefully" advocate for the acceptance of their afflictions. We are all sinners -- but we do no one a favor by pretending that it is acceptable to advocate sin. The foundations of society are eroded, and eventually that society collapses into a culture that cannot tell right from wrong, nor up from down. And the sinner is kept on the fast lane to hell as society encourages him to go on his way, telling him that he does no wrong.
Good for the Russians.
Do we, as FReepers,...
Yes, poison should not be released into society. Equating the promotion of homosexual 'rights' on the same plane as demonstrating for "unpopular and controversial" political rights is playing the game of moral equivalence. They aren't the same. Sin should be opposed, not celebrated.
A right to assemble peaceably is enshrined in our constitution as God-given (First Amendment). Russia has no Bill of Rights and, because they don't recognize any God (Creator), the state is the arbiter of what is a right and what is not. Therefore, (wrongly) in Russia there is no “right” to protest or assemble.
In this case I side not with the homosexuals nor the government. It is one thing to protest for Human Rights, in toto, but to merely protest for select rights that favor a decadent sexual practice garners no sympathy on my part.
The homosexual movement in Russia has been credibly linked to some bad actors working to destabilize the country.
Think a ‘Communist Pride’ rally would have gone over in the US circa 1950? How about a Jihadapalooza protest in NYC on the anniversary of 9/11? I’m no big fan of the Russkies or Putin, but they’re just keeping their thumb on their own ‘queer’ little brand of domestic terrorist.
Have you seen the reaction to Prop 8 here in Kalifornia?
The gays are doing exactly what you discribe in your last paragragh!
Of course there will be a backlash on them!