Up until fairly recently, Orthodoxy was not a strong influence on Russian life.
According to this Guardian article, British Muslims have no chill, but more than a few Muslims on the mainland are chill with gays, particularly in France.
You seem very centered on Abrahamic religions. Pretty much all Western neopagans are tolerant of homosexuals. Francis Cabral, a Jesuit missionary, recounts with disgust about how homosexual relations were tolerated by Japanese Buddhists. Hsing Yun, a Taiwanese Buddhist who died last year, specifically said that homosexuals must be tolerated. Haitian Voodoo has two deities associated with homosexuality. Various indigenous religions in America have similarly tolerant views, and the term “two-spirit” comes from them.
This is a few individuals. These individuals are old and thus in the group that is most religious. In another response in this thread I linked a study by Levada showing that for most Russians, religion is either minimally important or not a part of their life at all.
Fukur said we will never be free from homophobia until everyone rejects religion.
i’d ship every person that insists on their religion over science to some hellhole to rot away. building a better world now saves future generations form suffering. the payoff is immeasurable.
even them. we’re a global society now. unless a group of people wants to live completely disconnected from the rest of the world, we cannot proceed as a global society if we’re not all on the same page.
EDIT: keeping traditions and preserving a cultural heritage is not the same as believing and abiding by a non-scientific set of beliefs. there are nuances to your question, but i provided a non-nuanced answer.
The old homophobic laws of Russia, rooted in religion, were repealed under Lenin (Khoroshilova 2017). The reintroduction of crackdowns of homosexuals began during Stalin (ibid.). The Comintern began linking homosexuality to fascism and moral degeneracy under Stalinist leadership (Healey 2001, p. 183). Eventually, the USSR banned sodomy due to a conversation between Iagoda and Stalin, with Iagoda linking homosexuality to counterrevolution, degeneracy, corruption of the youth, and pedophilia (ibid., p. 184-187). This was then reinforced in propaganda by Gorky, who famously said “Destroy the homosexuals - Fascism will disappear” (ibid., p. 189-190).
I will skip over legal changes of most of the post-Stalinist era of the USSR, as they matter little in this context. What does matter is that the USSR continued to be strongly antitheistic and anticlerical. As a consequence, religiosity isn’t intense in Russia, and many aren’t religious at all (Agapeeva 2021).
Now let us look at modernity. Putin is allegedly religious, but his dislike of homosexuals is definitely secular in nature.
Analysis of his homophobic comments and the justifications of anti-gay laws reveal the same preoccupations of Stalin and Gorky. The law against being gay in public was described as preventing the propaganda of homosexuality towards children (Roberts 2013). In an interplay with nationalism, the LGBT movement is seen as an influence from the degenerate West, bent on corrupting the Russian youth. This is best seen in the designation of prominent Russian gay activists and organizations as foreign agents (Human Rights Watch 2021) or the use of the English word “gender” to describe things they despise.
Note how at no point have the protagonists of this story described homosexuality as a sin or invoked God. Indeed, the first half of this text is dedicated to Leninists.
Anecdotally, I see this in my personal life as a Russian emigre. Many people in my family hold minor homophobic views, framed typically as disgust, seen universally as Western and liberal in character. All of the Russians I have personally heard expressing a disgust or dislike of homophobia are atheists.
Now for the alternative solution:
According to Pettigrew and Tropp (2008), the three main ways of reducing prejudice against a group is through increasing understanding of that group, lessening anxiety about the group, and improving empathy towards that group, with the second two being stronger factors. Contact with the group accomplishes all three. This is supported anecdotally by tales of bigots changing their positions when they found out their own loved ones were gay.
One should note that a lack of empathy and high levels of anxiety about boogeymen are the hallmarks of a conservative worldview.
Therefore, combatting homophobia is best done through increasing visibility, which is the function of “outness” and pride parades, and through combatting conservativism and the reactionary gender roles that led to the birth of homophobic attitudes in the first place. This would in turn entail a battle against class society in general, but that is a discussion for another time.
Pettigrew, Thomas F., and Linda R. Tropp. 2008. “How does intergroup contact reduce prejudice? Meta-analytic tests of three mediators”. European Journal of Social Psychology 38 (6): 922-934. doi:10.1002/ejsp.504.
According to Pettigrew and Tropp (2008), the three main ways of reducing prejudice against a group is through increasing understanding of that group, lessening anxiety about the group, and improving empathy towards that group, with the second two being stronger factors. Contact with the group accomplishes all three. This is supported anecdotally by tales of bigots changing their positions when they found out their own loved ones were gay.
One should note that a lack of empathy and high levels of anxiety about boogeymen are the hallmarks of a conservative worldview.
Therefore, combatting homophobia is best done through increasing visibility, which is the function of “outness” and pride parades, and through combatting conservativism and the reactionary gender roles that led to the birth of homophobic attitudes in the first place. This would in turn entail a battle against class society in general, but that is a discussion for another time.
do you think this approach is easier within the context of a religious society or a secular one? the beginning of your statement opens with “while rooted in religious doctrine”.
i’m sorry, but you have an inherent bias towards secular society as a russian emmigrant. you grew up in an authoritarian society masked as a secular one. you should at least acknowledge this. it might not discredit you to say so.
I have not used the word “doctrine” at any point in my comment. If I had to guess, you’re referring to the “old laws” from the opening paragraph. These old laws are from Tsarist times.
You contrast secular and authoritarian societies as opposites. They are not necessarily so. A society can be both.
When you ask if my approach would be easier in a secular or religious society, you are mistaken in how you construct the question. First, a secular society does not preclude religiosity among its members. Second, the optimal approach would be a pluralist one.
I don’t think whether people are religious or secular is a relevant metric for people, animals, or the planet. Shitty people exist in both groups and will be shitty regardless.
Man you give up quick when the effective solution isn’t attacking religion. Makes me suspect that your actual motivation may not be ending bigotry, but rather furthering your own bigotry. (Shocking, I know)
Not necessarily. Plenty of chill religious people and unchill atheists. Russian homophobia, for instance, is generally secular.
Really? So why is that Krill East Orthodox Shaman announcing he hates gays every single week?
Also show me the religious Muslim who isn’t a homophobe
Up until fairly recently, Orthodoxy was not a strong influence on Russian life.
According to this Guardian article, British Muslims have no chill, but more than a few Muslims on the mainland are chill with gays, particularly in France.
You seem very centered on Abrahamic religions. Pretty much all Western neopagans are tolerant of homosexuals. Francis Cabral, a Jesuit missionary, recounts with disgust about how homosexual relations were tolerated by Japanese Buddhists. Hsing Yun, a Taiwanese Buddhist who died last year, specifically said that homosexuals must be tolerated. Haitian Voodoo has two deities associated with homosexuality. Various indigenous religions in America have similarly tolerant views, and the term “two-spirit” comes from them.
Someone should have informed my grandmother and all her old friends of this fact, since they were evidently confused.
And?
I am tried of pulling teeth with you. Make your case
I did. In another comment in this thread, I put in the effort of writing a multi-paragraph comment with citations.
How nice for you. Here is a golf clap
as it was under Stalin.
Correct
Well those Jehovah witnesses weren’t going to ship themselves to Siberia.
Some call it divine intervention by the state.
We were talking about homophobia. The concentrated effort to suppress religiosity is a whole other can of worms.
i’d ship every person that insists on their religion over science to some hellhole to rot away. building a better world now saves future generations form suffering. the payoff is immeasurable.
What if they’re Indigenous pagans?
even them. we’re a global society now. unless a group of people wants to live completely disconnected from the rest of the world, we cannot proceed as a global society if we’re not all on the same page.
EDIT: keeping traditions and preserving a cultural heritage is not the same as believing and abiding by a non-scientific set of beliefs. there are nuances to your question, but i provided a non-nuanced answer.
7 decades ago…
is it really, though? provide some evidence. and if it is, do you have a better solution to reduce bias?
Okay :)
The old homophobic laws of Russia, rooted in religion, were repealed under Lenin (Khoroshilova 2017). The reintroduction of crackdowns of homosexuals began during Stalin (ibid.). The Comintern began linking homosexuality to fascism and moral degeneracy under Stalinist leadership (Healey 2001, p. 183). Eventually, the USSR banned sodomy due to a conversation between Iagoda and Stalin, with Iagoda linking homosexuality to counterrevolution, degeneracy, corruption of the youth, and pedophilia (ibid., p. 184-187). This was then reinforced in propaganda by Gorky, who famously said “Destroy the homosexuals - Fascism will disappear” (ibid., p. 189-190).
I will skip over legal changes of most of the post-Stalinist era of the USSR, as they matter little in this context. What does matter is that the USSR continued to be strongly antitheistic and anticlerical. As a consequence, religiosity isn’t intense in Russia, and many aren’t religious at all (Agapeeva 2021).
Now let us look at modernity. Putin is allegedly religious, but his dislike of homosexuals is definitely secular in nature.
Analysis of his homophobic comments and the justifications of anti-gay laws reveal the same preoccupations of Stalin and Gorky. The law against being gay in public was described as preventing the propaganda of homosexuality towards children (Roberts 2013). In an interplay with nationalism, the LGBT movement is seen as an influence from the degenerate West, bent on corrupting the Russian youth. This is best seen in the designation of prominent Russian gay activists and organizations as foreign agents (Human Rights Watch 2021) or the use of the English word “gender” to describe things they despise.
Note how at no point have the protagonists of this story described homosexuality as a sin or invoked God. Indeed, the first half of this text is dedicated to Leninists.
Anecdotally, I see this in my personal life as a Russian emigre. Many people in my family hold minor homophobic views, framed typically as disgust, seen universally as Western and liberal in character. All of the Russians I have personally heard expressing a disgust or dislike of homophobia are atheists.
Now for the alternative solution:
According to Pettigrew and Tropp (2008), the three main ways of reducing prejudice against a group is through increasing understanding of that group, lessening anxiety about the group, and improving empathy towards that group, with the second two being stronger factors. Contact with the group accomplishes all three. This is supported anecdotally by tales of bigots changing their positions when they found out their own loved ones were gay.
One should note that a lack of empathy and high levels of anxiety about boogeymen are the hallmarks of a conservative worldview.
Therefore, combatting homophobia is best done through increasing visibility, which is the function of “outness” and pride parades, and through combatting conservativism and the reactionary gender roles that led to the birth of homophobic attitudes in the first place. This would in turn entail a battle against class society in general, but that is a discussion for another time.
Works Cited:
Khoroshilova, Olga. 2017. “1917 Russian Revolution: The gay community’s brief window of freedom”. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41737330
Healey, Dan. 2001. “Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia: The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent”. University of Chicago Press.
Agapeeva, Kseniya. 2021. “Religiosity During the Pandemic”. Levada.ru. https://www.levada.ru/2021/04/14/religioznost-v-period-pandemii/
Roberts, Scott. 2013. “Vladimir Putin says anti-gay Russian laws are about ‘protecting children’”. Pink News. https://www.thepinknews.com/2013/06/26/vladimir-putin-says-anti-gay-russian-laws-are-about-protecting-children/
Human Rights Watch. 2021. “Statement by Russian and International Human Rights Organizations in Support of Russian LGBT Rights Activists under Attack”. Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/11/19/statement-russian-and-international-human-rights-organizations-support-russian-lgbt
Pettigrew, Thomas F., and Linda R. Tropp. 2008. “How does intergroup contact reduce prejudice? Meta-analytic tests of three mediators”. European Journal of Social Psychology 38 (6): 922-934. doi:10.1002/ejsp.504.
do you think this approach is easier within the context of a religious society or a secular one? the beginning of your statement opens with “while rooted in religious doctrine”.
i’m sorry, but you have an inherent bias towards secular society as a russian emmigrant. you grew up in an authoritarian society masked as a secular one. you should at least acknowledge this. it might not discredit you to say so.
I have not used the word “doctrine” at any point in my comment. If I had to guess, you’re referring to the “old laws” from the opening paragraph. These old laws are from Tsarist times.
You contrast secular and authoritarian societies as opposites. They are not necessarily so. A society can be both.
When you ask if my approach would be easier in a secular or religious society, you are mistaken in how you construct the question. First, a secular society does not preclude religiosity among its members. Second, the optimal approach would be a pluralist one.
“cutting off people’s pinkies will reduce global warming”
“People with missing pinkies contribute just as much to global warming”
“Do they really though? Provide some evidence. And if true do you have a better solution to reduce global warming?”
People don’t need to have an alternative plan ready to go in order to point out that yours is ineffective.
so you don’t think that a secular society is better for people, animals, and the planet than a religious one?
I don’t think whether people are religious or secular is a relevant metric for people, animals, or the planet. Shitty people exist in both groups and will be shitty regardless.
well, one path is based on reason and logic. the other is based on fairy tales. which path is more likely to produce the best result?
Anti - vaxxers are based on fairy tales but claim to be based on reason and logic. Religion is not the problem, education is.
well good luck legislating effective education within the context of a christian nation.
Man you give up quick when the effective solution isn’t attacking religion. Makes me suspect that your actual motivation may not be ending bigotry, but rather furthering your own bigotry. (Shocking, I know)