It's hard not to look at Vladimir Putin's Russia and see that it's become more like the Soviet state it replaced and not the liberal democracy envisioned when communism fell in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Russia has over the last 100 years or so transitioned from totalitarian monarchy to totalitarian communism (arguably there is no other kind) to a form of totalitarian democracy.
Russian citizens get to elect their leaders, sure, and so long those citizens do nothing to challenge the proper way of life established by their duly-elected leaders, they won't end up in jail with the Pussy Riot. Some hell of a democracy.
Russia's gay and lesbian community has, in particular, faced the brunt of the Putin regime's tyranny of the majority. That's why Lansing City Councilmember Jody Washington thinks it's time Lansing cut its sister city ties with St. Petersburg, Russia.
Between The Lines: "I do not believe that Lansing, Michigan should be in a Sister City agreement with St. Petersburg, Russia when these type of violations are occurring," Washington told Between The Lines in an email. "I do believe that the agreement violates the Human Rights Ordinance. We have long been working on making Lansing, Michigan an inclusive city where everyone's civil rights are protected. To be in an official agreement with any part of the world that violates those human rights that we have protected in our ordinances does not make any sense, whatsoever."
Council President Carol Wood told Randy Hannan, Mayor Virg Bernero's chief of staff, that the issue would be on the council's committee of the whole meeting on Monday July 22, and that the administration should be prepared discuss the relationship and the city's 2006 Human Rights Ordinance. The 2006 law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Washington raised the concerns because of a June 29 pride rally in Russia that resulted in the beating and arrest of at least 60 pro-gay protesters. The arrests came as a result of St. Petersburg's anti-gay law which makes it a crime to demonstrate in support of LGBT equality. That law, passed in 2012, was adopted by the national government of Russia last month, and signed into law by Russian President Vladimir Putin the day after the June 29 arrests.
The new Russian law, which passed the national parliament unanimously, seeks to ban "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations."
There's a Catherine the Great horse joke in their somewhere, but I'll leave it alone for now.
