Putin’s Russia vs. LGBTs

Russian President Vladmir Putin’s passage of his country’s notorious law banning “homosexual propaganda” has sparked long overdue interest in Russia’s brutal repression of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people.

But while some Western activists launched highly publicized boycotts of the Olympic Games and allegedly Russian products like Stoli vodka, their self-righteousness belies their ignorance of how Western governments themselves, including the Obama administration, have abetted the Russian government’s previous repressions of LGBTs. Moreover, their launch of these campaigns without the consultation, let alone leadership of Russian LGBT activists who had been suffering the beatings, arrests and court cases displays an arrogance which could severely hamper Russian activists’ movement.

John Meeks of the Gay Liberation Network interviews GLN’s Andy Thayer, participant in three illegal Moscow Pride marches and the only U.S. national who has participated in more than one.

Originally broadcast August 9, 2013