Quote Originally Posted by Deborski View Post
In on online essay titled 'The Facade of Hospitality,' the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum reports that 'in preparation for the arrival of Olympic spectators, Nazi officials ordered that foreign visitors should not be subjected to the criminal strictures of the Nazi anti-homosexual laws.'
Hmm... it's always been my understanding that the anti-homosexual laws of the Nazi regime were seldom applied to non-Germans. After all, persecuting Jewish and Romany gays for their sexuality would have been rather redundant, since the Master Plan was to kill ALL of them! And when it came to non-Nordic/Aryan groups who weren't scheduled for extermination, but only for occupation -- like the French, for example -- more gay Frenchmen = fewer French babies = fewer French resistance fighters in 20 years. Of course, there were gays who happened to be among the millions of Jews and Roms and Poles and Communists, but for the most part, they weren't arrested specifically for being homosexual. (I've seen estimates of approximately 50,000 Germans and Austrians who were thrown into Nazi concentration camps BECAUSE they were gay.)

And, incidentally, while I think that Hanna has been dancing around and understating the damage that this new Russian law does to freedom of speech and the press, I also think that it's a gigantic exaggeration to bring up the Nazis in this thread. At this point, I would say the law is "worrisome", but it's far from being a human-rights disaster YET. And, while the law attacks freedom of speech, the "Insult to Religious Feelings" law ALSO attacks freedom of speech*, but it hasn't drawn a call for international boycotts.

P.S. Hanna -- "You're allowed to publicly say anything you want about homosexuality as long as it's not too positive or supportive" is not far removed, in my opinion, from the Saudi policy that "You can publicly worship any God you want, as long as it's not the Christian God, or the Jewish God, or the Hindu pantheon..."

P.P.S. I would add that the Russian law against religious insults -- bad as it may be -- is "content neutral" insofar as Christians are prohibited from insulting Islam, AND Muslims are prohibited from insulting Christianity -- so, in theory, everyone wears the same gag. But the "Homosexual Propaganda" law does not even make a pretense of banning propaganda AGAINST homosexuality -- only one side in this debate gets the duct tape: