The winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia are underway. Protests against Russia’s reactionary law prohibiting advocacy of homosexuality are taking place all over the world as well as in Sochi itself. The bigoted law targets anyone who “advocates” homosexuality or “promotes” homosexuality among minors, and is being used to fuel bigotry and hatred against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people in Russia. The U.S government, silent for so long on the rights of LGBTQ people to equality, has now come out strongly in support of gay athletes, appearing to fiercely champion the rights of LGBTQ people in Russia. Three openly gay former Olympic athletes are included in the U.S. delegation to Sochi. The U.S. media and countless celebrities from the U.S. (many of whom have never previously spoken out for LGBTQ rights here in the U.S) are jumping on board and strongly condemning the law, with some calling for a boycott of the games.
Such U.S.-based opposition to anti-LGBTQ bigotry in Russia shows the strength of the movement for equality and represents a shift that has been going on in the ruling circles in the U.S. on the issue. The Russian government’s slander and defamation of LGBTQ people cannot be excused and deserves the broadest possible movement against it. Recently, President Vladimir Putin warned protesters to “Leave the kids out of this, please,” a statement that implies that gay people actively recruit youth, as if homosexuality is a lifestyle choice—a right-wing bogus theory also widely used by anti-LGBTQ zealots in the U.S.
While strong opposition to the Russian law is fully justified, activists for social justice should not lose sight of the hypocrisy of leaders of the U.S. ruling elite, such as President Barack Obama and others, who love to lecture Russia on this issue, but then turn a blind eye to the extreme homophobia that still runs wild in the United States.
For example, an Arizona statute states that no school district shall include in its course of study any instruction that promotes a homosexual life-style. The statute also prohibits the advocacy of homosexuality. It stipulates, as if factual, that it is inappropriate to even suggest to children that there are “safe methods of homosexual sex.”
Although anti-sodomy laws were ruled unconstitutional in 2003 by the U.S. Supreme Court, both Texas and Alabama statutes mandate that children be taught that “homosexual conduct is a criminal offense.”
Only a few years ago, in 2002, the Winter Olympics took place in the state of Utah, which has some of the most draconian and bigoted statutes targeting LGBTQ rights. Local and national LGBTQ rights organizations held protests, which were repressed by the police and ignored by politicians, as well as the big capitalist media. Where were all the politicians and elite celebrities at that time?
It is clear that U.S. imperialism is looking for ways to target Russia, which, since it emerged from the overthrow of the Soviet Union, after the era of Boris Yeltsin, has become a rival to the U.S. and, at times, a source of support for independent states struggling against imperial domination.
Meanwhile, suicides among LGBTQ teens, both in Russia and the United States, are at epidemic proportions. Bigots and thugs are harassing and attacking LGBTQ people in the streets of both countries, and transgender youth are been bullied and threatened in schools throughout both countries, in cities both large and small.
Those who rightly demand the overturning of Russia’s backward law are failing the U.S. LGBTQ rights movement if they foolishly let the U.S. ruling class off the hook. The struggle for social and economic justice in the United States needs to focus on the capitalist system that relies on division among the working class, and not lose sight of the dominant role of U.S. imperialism around the globe.
