Apparently in Moscow I Deserve to Be Killed

At least, this is what Moscow's mayor says. Seventy-two-year-old conservative mayor Yuri Luzhkov made a televised statement just before banning the attempted Moscow Pride Parade that "Our society has healthy morals and rejects all these queers. If you even imagine that they get permission to hold their parade and gather, they will simply be killed."
http://www.gayrussia.ru/en/news/detail.php?ID=13543

Good to know. On the one hand, I find it chilling that a political leader can get away with saying that people from any minority group can and should be killed. World history has shown that bad things usually follow these kinds of statements. On the other hand, I appreciate the honesty. There's something refreshing about knowing exactly where things stand. He thinks we're evil and deserve to die. Clean cut, black and white. None of that "love the sinner, hate the sin" thing that you get from the more tolerant members of the Christian Right back at home, which often comes accompanied by the two-faced, smiling assurance that you're going directly to hell. The overall sentiment in both cases may be similarly hostile, but somehow I have far less fear of being lynched in Moscow than I would in, say, rural Wyoming if I ever went there.

I haven't been in Russia long, but I've noticed a pattern to the way things work here. Rules are both convoluted and rampant. They are also largely ignored. Drinking in public is illegal, but people drink beer on the way to work, and a common evening pastime is to take a bottle of wine to a park with your friends. It's illegal to drink vodka on the trains, but most trains sell vodka in the dining cars. I've yet to be stopped for drinking vodka on trains with any of my groups so far, but I'm told that the appropriate course of action if it happens is to offer the policeman a drink.

Point being, as long as you stay out of general view of the authorities in Russia, you can do pretty much whatever you want. Moscow's mayor thinks gay people should not exist, but the gay scene is alive and well. Lonely Planet lists three or four locations, and there certainly must be more. Traditionally, the gay scene in most places has always been underground, and with good reason, since in almost every society gay and gender-variant people are seen with suspicion at best and outright hatred at worst. So we stick to the shadows, and most mainstream people don't even think about us or know we exist until and unless we try to make ourselves visible. Like with Pride.

I'm thinking about Pride, because my girlfriend reminded me the other night that once again I'm missing DC Pride, which I've heard is a sight to behold. I'm also missing Boston Pride, St. Pete (Florida) Pride, Paris Pride, and pretty much any other Pride you can think of in any of the places I used to live. I wasn't even in Moscow for the abortive attempt at the pride parade that got shut down by the riot police 30 seconds after it began. In general I think that Pride is great, because it's a fun way to get ourselves out of the closet and be completely out in the open, for once in a year. In countries like Russia, though, the idea of Pride itself is controversial. One person interviewed by Time said that he just wants to be treated like everyone else, and running around screaming that he's gay is not going to achieve that.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1899340,00.html

It's a valid point. Everyone might want more acceptance and more rights, but very few people want to be the ones to stick their necks out in the effort to achieve this. I'm no exception; for all that I technically work for a company with an inclusive non-discrimination clause, the fact that I work on the ground in countries like Russia and Morocco effectively means that coming out would be one of the stupidest things I could possibly do. I have no desire to make my life any more complicated than it really needs to be, and I don't want to be the "face of diversity" in my company or anywhere else. I just want to live my life and have that be okay. It's all anyone really wants. It's just difficult to be both visible and acceptable. In general, you have to choose.