If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Options
Essential support for under 25s
Essential support for under 25s
Take a look around and enjoy reading the discussions. If you'd like to join in, it's really easy to register and then you'll be able to post. If you'd like to learn what this place is all about, head here.
Comments
Oh look, a personal attack in the guise of not making personal attacks.
:rolleyes:
has anyone whose posted here not seen the full videos put out with the police ignoring blatant aggression against gay rights people
What exactly was the point in replacing the word 'gay' in my posts with the word 'black'?
And anyway, who decides whether it's acceptable or not for people to be entitled to their opinions on homosexuality? I'm not condoning something like apartheid and I'm not going to condone Russia's homophobic inclinations but at the same time, since when was there some international standard regarding the views and opinions people are allowed to have?
I wasn't conding it. I was explaining it. Please read my posts before getting up on your Fair Trade soap box.
I will call him a twat for going to a clearly dangerous situation and making it worse. If he wants to campaign for gay rights then that's fine. But attending a banned march is not the way to do it. That is tantamount to a declaration of war and unless he's a total idiot which I suspect, then surely he knows that fighting and confrontation never solved anything. If he really wants to do anything about the situation for homosexuals in Russia then he'd be better off doing it through the political process and lobbying groups. However, I have a feeling his motivation was emotional blackmail. He went over there in full knowledge of what was very likely to happen to him. It happened and now the whole Western media jumps on his bandwagon and hey presto. Job done.
Again your use of such totally intangible and largely meaningless concepts such as human rights is quite baffling. Human rights is a very relative concept that varies from country to country, from culture to culture. If you think that everyone in the world should abide by some etheral legislation laid down by a court in Strasbourg or Brussels, then you really need to wake up to the real world. Because I really don't think human rights comes into the Russian skinhead's mind when he's beating someone up.
Agreed but in my defence i thought it was important to point out the fallacy that 1) Tatchell was a paedophile and 2) that this by implication should lessen our sympathy for the ridiculous and scary violence in Moscow.
oh exactly what i mean you've stopped the ruining of this debate thread by pointing out the fallacy of where some people were trying to lead it
In this case, whilst there are no international human rights instruments covering LGBT people, but there are covering people's right to freedom of expression and Russia is signed up to one of them (ICCPR).
There is also a difference between having an opinion on sexuality and a blatantly prejudiced government which allows people to be assulted for peaceful protest and then arrests people.
I think you should look at how many civil rights movements relied so heavily on the assembly of people and political protest. What are people supposed to do, pray?
Protesting is a form of lobbying, I mean how else are people supposed to do it? The fact is that it gets media coverage, which is something that allows for more safety for activists whilst they get their message accross (in theory, think about how the media was watching,especially with more famous people involved). Journalists can disappear, or have their material banned, people working directly with the government can but a rally of people and good media coverage gets them seen.
What other suggestion do you have for how they could achieve anything in LGBT rights?
Do explain further?
What media bandwagon? The equal rights bandwagon? Of course we live ina more liberal country, I am sure Tatchell and other campaigners attended so it would get media attention and be broadcasted to the UK amongst other countries. If it weren't then the outcome could have been worse.
Again, I don't understand waht you're getting at. International human rights law deals with states, not indivduals. What we had in Moscow was two things, the first being a violation of human rights by the state and the second being anti gay attitudes of people. The concept of human rights is not meaningless, it is the reason we can all debate on message boards like these. I think that you should be proud and embrace how many human rights you have in this country (you are British? American? Aussie?) and recognise that people in other countries have less. Maybe you are taking a cultural relativist side to the arguement, but personally I'm taking the universalist side of the arguement...
That people universally should be treated as equal by the state (who should also intervene to make sure people are not hurting each other imo), they should he freedom of information, freedom to self-determination, freedom from torture, freedom of expression ect ect
It is all very easy sitting in our computer rooms saying that human rights is a relative concept when we live in cushy societies where we can say and do pretty much what we want. But imagine the love of your life is murdered for their sexuality and the state refuses to do anything, how would you feel? I think I would feel gutted.
So when Tatchell campaigns for the lowering of homosexual consent to 16 as "only the start", suggests prosecution isn't necessary for adults who have sex with children, co-authors books supportive of paedophilic practices and proclaims the delights of shagging 9 year olds, he is merely "researching the history of relations between children and adults in a sexual context"?
LOL.
What you're arguing is nonsense which utterly misses the point of what Tatchell actually advocates.
Debate? You mean everyone agreeing it's out of order?
the comment you are referring to here was used to contextualise an example, and if you read it in the context of my post its perfectly clear; for arguements sake I will restate it.
There is a legitimate debate to be had about the sexual relationship of adults and children, particularly in an Historical and Sociological context. AS FAR AS I CAN SEE (which is what I said originally) this is what he is advocating; give me some evidence to the contrary and I might well decide that he doesn't fall into this catagory.
However the category itself is sound, and if you think its nonsense tell me which part of it is illogical.
EDIT: The only thing I can see at the moment which you could possibly have interpreted in this way, was the 1996 OutRage! press release in which he suggested that there should be no prosecutions for sexual relations between partners with three years or less difference in age.
If you've got something credible to add to this I'd be happy to see it.
In other words, a 16 y/o and a 12 y/o shagging a 13 y/o and a 9 y/o respectively is okay to Tatchell.
http://www.petertatchell.net/age%20of%20consent/14%20gay%20boyfriend.htm
All of which is uncomdemned by Tatchell. And, interestingly, no mention of the ancient Greeks!
I wonder, does he even really believe in a 3 year maximum age difference? Or this merely a useful tactical device, much like the BNP's switch from compulsory to voluntary repatriation, concealing the true strategy?
Hmmm...I wonder indeed!
ETA: And given all this, straight from the cunt's website, I really don't see any reason why the Guardian source should be disputed...
Its a bit of arbitrary age cut-off I grant you, and from what you've presented he doesn't appear to give an account of any 'cut-off' for this age limit. Yet as your own example shows us (Lee), it is never an unilateral subject. I don't agree with Tatchell's conclusions because I think there is too much scope for children to be harmed. But I think you can disagree with the quality of what he is saying (i.e: how the law should be reformed) but also see the principal of what he is getting at. His arguement for the opening up of sexual relations and the body is something that I think a lot of good could result from in society.
Point about the Greeks; he doesn't have to mention it directly, the whole debate and discourse takes place against the backdrop of an historical context; if I didn't make this clear at the outset i apologise, however it was there to give context to the debate (i.e: this isn't something recent or a phenomenon of modern societies).
I think what your examples bring up is the point that sexual development is a very personal process, and people will develop differently according to a combination of biology and environment. Unfortunately we need some kind of legal basis in order to give protection to the young, so the question really is how do we implement that.
I think 14 is too young to have as a legal baseline, but I would favour discretionary prosecutions as opposed to automatic ones, if it can be proved that the two persons involved were causing no harm.
When did it become acceptable for law enforcment officers to stand back and let a voilent mob attack a peaceful march?
Oh, and IMHO Tatchell is a twat who does as much harm as good...
Way to the miss point. We ain't talking merely about sexophobia here.
If Tatchell really believes in a 3 year limit, why no condemnation of the adults having sex with a child of primary school age, even worse a clearly vulnerable child who had ran away from a home? You don't think that's absolutely reprehensible? 'Coz Tatchell doesn't think so! At least sick freaks like Ginsberg admitted their perversion openly...
His agenda is clear, and I think you're deliberately ignoring it on the grounds that because someone is fighting for 'egalitarianism', they are above criticism - something which I've noted when engaging others in the past.
It's worth noting that a 16 y/o having sex with a 13 y/o is, by definition, paedophilia. And, while some 13 y/o's may be 'ready' for sex, many are not and exploitation IS inevitable from the 3 year limit.
Back on topic; what this reveals is an institutional bias towards nationalism and aggression in Russia at the level of Structures of local government and law and order bodies. That is the worrying watershed moment I'm getting at.
It melts your heart when you see enemies join forces to fight a common enemy doesn't it... Commies, neo-nazis and religious conservatives all together to fight the common enemy: the evil homosexual.
I don't know whether it will change what happens in Russia or not, but regardless - can we be chummy with a country that openly shows no care for breaches of human rights; to the extent that their authority figures can denounce a whole band of people as 'demonic' in something that is pure prejudice and even hate.
Back 'in the day', even before he came to power (1932 I think), Winston Churchill made very very clear what he thought of Nazis. Are we (the government) so afraid of upsetting other nations now we won't stand up for what we believe? Unless of course, in the case of Iraq, there is nothing to lose because we can invade anyway and ensure the supply of oil to the world economy is kept stable.
In the case of Putin, he sleeps at night with one hand in the 'off' switch for the gaspipe and that is enough to make various governments to jump through hoops for the nasty little shit.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6698753.stm
While this news might just seem amusing the background is rather more worrying. The evil twins act that controls Poland are turning out to be every bit as nasty and bigoted as Putin.
It would seem, yet again, that the one thing that unites bigots everywhere, be commies or rightwingers, atheists or theists of any given denomination, is their common hatred by homosexuals.
I really, really don't understand what the fixation with it is.
Yeah but he wasn't in the government then, in fact he was criticised for being a mad old warmonger for his criticism of Hitler... the government of the day was pretty much equally reluctant to criticise other nations.
When Hitler began to rearm and enter the Rhineland the British had cut their military expenditure to such a degree that they couldn't do much more than protest loudly.
Chamberlain, despite all the criticism of him, worked out the obvious truth that Britain wasn't strong enough to opposse German militarily and that moral posturing, whilst appealing to the man on the street, actually makes no difference. The UK had two options, increase military spending or try and deal with Germany by diplomacy.
Whilst some of the critics of appeasement called for tougher diplomacy and having something to back it up with, many called for tougher diplomacy and further cuts to defence spending, which may be laudable, but is also laughable. Hitler recognised the weakness of the Western democracies and happily rearmed.
It was only after the breakdown of Munich that serious attempts were made to rearm. If this had been done in the early 30s, we might be living in a world which didn't have WW2 or one where the British and French could have defeated Germany without Soviet help.
I'm with Roosevelt 'Speak softly and carry a big speak' - speaking up for what we believe makes no difference.
I don't envision a media spectacle though, rather it would be nice if we saw some sign from this government, that governments that practice intolerance and hate are not good friends to have.
look at the clip at the end, it makes you worry about the far right in russia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LM9XEVf8HE&mode=related&search=
sadly nothing can be done about the repugnant scum posting comments though
thanks i had some troubles finding a normal one yesterday, though one could pick out the actual news footage amongst the neo-nazi crap in it