Ashley Wagner making a statement against Russia's law | Page 17 | Golden Skate

Ashley Wagner making a statement against Russia's law

Bluebonnet

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Joined
Aug 18, 2010
I don't understand why Wagner would protest the russian law. After all, it's their country, their law. Their people decided. Their law makers made it. Every country has its own culture, own law. We don't have to agree but we need to respect them. There are countries where a man can have multiple wives in one househood... Even in U.S., it wasn't long ago that gay marrige was not legal, right?

I'd think that Wagner doesn't really understand about this law. With the way the US media goes, of course it is "horrible" and "inhuman" like Saddam Hussein's Iraq.;)
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

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Joined
Jan 25, 2013
I don't understand why Wagner would protest the russian law. After all, it's their country, their law. Their people decided. Their law makers made it. Every country has its own culture, own law. We don't have to agree but we need to respect them. There are countries where a man can have multiple wives in one househood... Even in U.S., it wasn't long ago that gay marrige was not legal, right?

As she has stated, it's because she has many gay friends and is protesting a law that persecutes people for their sexual orientation.

Say in a Middle Eastern country a woman is forced against her will to marry or is stoned to death... should you respect this? Should it be considered wrong for you to speak out against this?

If people in Russia are jailed or fined or having children taken away from them due to deep-seeded homophobia, are you supposed to accept this because that is their law?

You're essentially saying that one shouldn't fight for human rights in other countries as it is only the business of that country and the citizens its laws are oppressing.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

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Jan 25, 2013
As I have said, that is not the law. That is your misinterpretation of the law.

Are you saying the laws do not call for removal of children from parents who are LGBT, who have been raising them for years? Are you saying they do not arrest/fine/jail people who say it is normal to be gay, or who hold hands with their same sex partner, or kiss their same sex partner in public?
 

luckyguy

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Jan 25, 2008
CSG, just saying. I live in a big liberal city. There live many gays here. But I NEVER saw a gay man kissing his partner in public.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

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Jan 25, 2013
CSG, just saying. I live in a big liberal city. There live many gays here. But I NEVER saw a gay man kissing his partner in public.

And if you did, do you think they should be fined/jailed/arrested for doing so? How about holding hands? Because even kissing/holding hands can be constituted as "homosexual propaganda" under these laws if children are present (which is pretty much everywhere :sarcasm:).
 

gmyers

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Mar 6, 2010
And if you did, do you think they should be fined/jailed/arrested for doing so? How about holding hands? Because even kissing/holding hands can be constituted as "homosexual propaganda" under these laws if children are present (which is pretty much everywhere :sarcasm:).

This interpretation of the law really does not exist in Russian law enforcement!
 

luckyguy

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Jan 25, 2008
And if you did, do you think they should be fined/jailed/arrested for doing so?
After what I´ve heard I would not recommend a gay public kissing in Russia, but not because of the police. There are possibly people in the streets with unpredictable reactions who do not want to see it.
 

Ptichka

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Jul 28, 2003
Are you saying the laws do not call for removal of children from parents who are LGBT, who have been raising them for years? Are you saying they do not arrest/fine/jail people who say it is normal to be gay, or who hold hands with their same sex partner, or kiss their same sex partner in public?
CSG, much as I hate to agree with your opponent here, Bluebonnet is right.

There is nothing in the law that calls for taking children away from LGBT families. There have been several such amendments offered, but it is not a part of the law. Which doesn't mean that a Child Protection officer, enjoying quite a wide range, would not consider children to be at risk living with gay parent(s). In fact, even the denial of adoption into countries supporting gay unions does not appear to be legal - rather, it's judicial activism on the part of the judges who are afraid they wouldn't be complying with the spirit of the law if they allowed such adoptions. Furthermore, at least one such adoption refusal has already been overturned by the Russian Supreme Court, and another one might be on its way, with even Mr-against-foreign-adoptions-Astakhov supporting the heterosexual Russian-Swiss couple in question.

Likewise, despite what you hear, Russia is not about to start arresting people for holding hands or kissing their gay partners. Those that have been arrested for kissing actions have been arrested as demonstrators, not as gays. Legality of such arrests is another issue entirely.

Having said all that, do not forget that Russia is country that is corrupt to its very core. There is always a horrible danger of laws with such a wide potential interpretation in such a society. Essentially, this makes all gays perfect targets for blackmail - do X or we'll call your blog "gay propaganda", do Y or we'll cause you problems with your kids, do Z or we will expose you etc.
 

Ptichka

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Jul 28, 2003
quite frankly government should not be involved in marriage at all (straight, gay, or otherwise). let the churches/believers/faiths either say yay or nay we'll perform the ceremony - based on their religious "principle" - and other churches/believers/faiths that have no problem with it be able to perform them. Forget the tax breaks and other "perks" go away.
That used to be my opinion. However, like it or not, the institution of marriage is good for the society. Makes guys more responsible and all that. So from a purely public policy point of view, you still want to have government involved. Oh, and marriage is sill tightly coupled with adoption rights - married couples generally find it easier to adopt then singles, for obvious reasons. So you take the government out of it - and you're leaving all the atheists screwed. Of course you can always do what Israel does - they don't have non-religious marriages, so either you find a registered rabbi/imam/priest/etc. to perform the ceremony, or you do what non-affiliated do and go get married on Cyprus :p
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
That used to be my opinion. However, like it or not, the institution of marriage is good for the society. Makes guys more responsible and all that. So from a purely public policy point of view, you still want to have government involved. Oh, and marriage is sill tightly coupled with adoption rights - married couples generally find it easier to adopt then singles, for obvious reasons. So you take the government out of it - and you're leaving all the atheists screwed. Of course you can always do what Israel does - they don't have non-religious marriages, so either you find a registered rabbi/imam/priest/etc. to perform the ceremony, or you do what non-affiliated do and go get married on Cyprus :p

When I started reading your comment, I was about to cite Israel, and then you did. Yes, I don't think we would do very well in the U.S. if marriage were only a religious institution. In Israel, many Jews can't get approval to be married because the rabbis in charge of such things don't recognize certain Jewish denominations.

What is separate in the U.S., and should be, is that no religious institution can be forced to perform a ceremony that is against its doctrine. Even if gay marriage is legal, no cathedral will be forced to hold a wedding between two men or two women. The government has no power to compel such a thing, just as it cannot now force the Catholic church to recognize a civil divorce and subsequent remarriage, and it can't compel an Orthodox Jewish husband to grant a get (sort of a divorce consent) to a wife petitioning for divorce.
 

luckyguy

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Jan 25, 2008
What is separate in the U.S., and should be, is that no religious institution can be forced to perform a ceremony that is against its doctrine. Even if gay marriage is legal, no cathedral will be forced to hold a wedding between two men or two women. The government has no power to compel such a thing, just as it cannot now force the Catholic church to recognize a civil divorce and subsequent remarriage, and it can't compel an Orthodox Jewish husband to grant a get (sort of a divorce consent) to a wife petitioning for divorce.
Good starting point to think about the role that the Russian Orthodox Church played prior to the introduction of the new laws.
 

bsfan

On the Ice
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Feb 10, 2011
As she has stated, it's because she has many gay friends and is protesting a law that persecutes people for their sexual orientation.

Say in a Middle Eastern country a woman is forced against her will to marry or is stoned to death... should you respect this? Should it be considered wrong for you to speak out against this?

If people in Russia are jailed or fined or having children taken away from them due to deep-seeded homophobia, are you supposed to accept this because that is their law?

You're essentially saying that one shouldn't fight for human rights in other countries as it is only the business of that country and the citizens its laws are oppressing.

Of course I respect their decision. They know what they want from their point of view. It doesn't mean their law is good or bad, or I should follow or not. And I was talking aobut a man can have 1+ wives. I don't know if their law clearly allows forced marriage or stoned to death. I am not a citizen and have never been a citizen of those countries. If we don't respect the law, then only big voice and big fist will work.
 

Tonichelle

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Jun 27, 2003
while it's true that the government shouldn't be able to force it - they are already working to make it a hate crime... not just for businesses but churches. So...

like I said, government should not be in the business of marriage anyway.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

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Joined
Jan 25, 2013
Of course I respect their decision. They know what they want from their point of view. It doesn't mean their law is good or bad, or I should follow or not. And I was talking aobut a man can have 1+ wives. I don't know if their law clearly allows forced marriage or stoned to death. I am not a citizen and have never been a citizen of those countries. If we don't respect the law, then only big voice and big fist will work.

So, you would condone capital punishment/murder and forcing someone to be married because it's that country's law, even if it infringes on basic human rights? You can't discern for yourself if a law that permits murder or discriminates/imprisons people is morally good or bad?
 

dorispulaski

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Country
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while it's true that the government shouldn't be able to force it - they are already working to make it a hate crime... not just for businesses but churches. So...

like I said, government should not be in the business of marriage anyway.

No, "they" are not making it a hate crime for a church not to marry somebody. People on FB and such are writing this, but there is no such laws trying to be passed, because they are absolutely un-Constitutional.

Heck, they can't even force the Catholic Church to marry divorced heterosexual couples.

Now if a justice of the peace in CT refused to marry a gay couple, that might be against the law in some way because such folks are agents of the state, and they are appointed to, among other things, marry people that are legal to get married. But a church, no.
 
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Bluebonnet

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Aug 18, 2010
What about a pastor decides to perform a SSM ceremony against the Church's doctrine and the will of the members of his church?
 

dorispulaski

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Country
United-States
Then the church will discipline him in whatever way it sees fit. It's not the business of the government. Separation of church & state is in the U.S. Constitution.

In the reverse case, when an Episcopal pastor in my town refused to accept that he had a gay married bishop, which is OK in the US Episcopal Church, and his congregation went along with him, the Episcopal church ended up repossessing the church from that group (because in the Episcopal Church, the denomination, not the congregation, owns the building.

The pastor & congregation affiliated with the Episcopal of Africa, which does not allow same-sex anything and is one of several groups at the heart of the criminalization of being gay in Nigeria. The state & US government have no right to do anything about that either.
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The Supreme Court refused to take the case, because it's the church's business and not the state's nor the federal government's business.

If a Catholic priest married a gay couple, probably he would be excommunicated (and fired, of course). None of that is the federal government's business.
Here's an Australian priest who got excommunicated just that way.
http://www.charismanews.com/world/4...mmunicates-pro-gay-marriage-priest-for-heresy

If it happened in the US, the government wouldn't and can't legally intervene.
 
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Frenchie

I'm gonna customize the CRAP out of this title!
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May 4, 2013
What about a pastor decides to perform a SSM ceremony against the Church's doctrine and the will of the members of his church?

I think going with what you believe to be right is essential in making things move, internal debate isn't a sign of rebellion. The Church often took longer than average to come around "officially", like with Galileo Galilei and the Earth being the center of the Universe.
By 1616 the attacks on the ideas of Copernicus had reached a head, and Galileo went to Rome to try to persuade Catholic Church authorities not to ban Copernicus' ideas. In the end, a decree of the Congregation of the Index was issued, declaring that the ideas that the Sun stood still and that the Earth moved were "false" and "altogether contrary to Holy Scripture", and suspending Copernicus's De Revolutionibus until it could be corrected. (...)

In September 1632, Galileo was ordered to come to Rome to stand trial. His final interrogation, in July 1633, concluded with his being threatened with torture if he did not tell the truth, but he maintained his denial despite the threat. The sentence of the Inquisition was delivered on June 22. It was in three essential parts:
- Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy", namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless at the centre of the universe, that the Earth is not at its centre and moves, and that one may hold and defend an opinion as probable after it has been declared contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to "abjure, curse and detest" those opinions.
- He was sentenced to formal imprisonment at the pleasure of the Inquisition. On the following day this was commuted to house arrest, which he remained under for the rest of his life.
- His offending Dialogue was banned; and in an action not announced at the trial, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future.
Many within the Church have known - and stated - that a condom is actually quite helpful, even if the Church hasn't come around until very, very recently.
 

Ptichka

Forum translator
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Jul 28, 2003
BTW, in Russia, AFAIK, church actually will not marry you until you the government-issued marriage certificate.
 
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