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Notes -
Why is LGBTQ so important for liberals in terms of foreign policy?
For example, when debating Russia, arguments often amount to Russia is evil because they aren't onboard with pride. Russia isn't putting LGBTQAASASFDSFDSFDSFDSFSD people in concentration camps, they simply seem not to have pride flags while having a don't ask don't tell attitude. Why does that infuriate liberals that much?
Countries in the middle east can engage in all sorts of questionable behaviour but, often it is a lack of LGBTQ flags that infuriates the left. Again, they aren't mass-executing LGBTQ people or having concentrations camps, they simply don't celebrate it or want it rubbed in people's faces.
It seems like existence of pride parades seems to be a key benchmark for judging the moral virtue of a country. Why is this benchmark so central?
About 5 years ago I was hiking in the Grand Canyon with friends and we met a 20-year-old Russian kid at the beach who asked if he could tag along with us for the hike back up to the rim. He spent a lot of the time telling us how great Russia was, which was fine, but one of the things he pointed to in evidence of its greatness was the fact that they could "beat faggots in the street" with no repercussions. I don't know if this kind of attitude is typical, but the fact that any random tourist would find it appropriate to tell Americans he just met that apropos of nothing in particular is at least an indication that the attitudes over there go beyond simply not celebrating it. Hell, even the rural Trump supporter in our group seemed pretty unnerved by it.
It's hard to say exactly what the percentage of Russians eager to beat up faggots in the street is. I'd assume it is mostly concentrated in the rural/small town chavs, with the older generations of the same class not as eager to do it themselves, but approving it otherwise.
Tangentially, in USA it seems that the prime thing a regular man fears about prison is ass-rape. In Russia, everybody knows that ass-rape in prisons is reserved for the underclass, such as faggots.
But yes, it really does show that American conservative "don't rub it in our faces" and Russian conservative "don't rub it in our faces" are vastly different levels of tolerance.
I would associate it, quite strongly, with high crime low income neighborhoods. Eg black ghettos, certain trailer parks. Ditto the use of 'fag'. On the other hand I'd associate 'it should be a crime' 'they're mentally ill' 'its like pedophilia- just unnatural' with the normal American reservoirs of social conservatism- religious and deep rural people.
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My understanding is that being gay on the outside was merely one of many ways you could become a petukh in Russian prisons. Online accounts agree that the local vor could declare any inmate to be a petukh based on broadly subjective grounds like "not defending his honour" or "behaving dishonorably towards another inmate" and that once you were raped once your status as a petukh was unambiguous across the whole prison system.
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