Rainbow Flags and the Russian Anti-Propaganda Law

On August 12, 2013, California’s state senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) introduced Senate Resolution 18, which urged CalPERS and CalSTRS not to invest future resources from their pension plans in Russia. On August 26, the resolution passed the Senate Public Employment and Retirement Committee. From the resolution: “That the Senate strongly encourages the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, whenever feasible and consistent with their fiduciary responsibilities, to cease making direct investments in Russia…” Leno’s resolution was a response to the June 30, 2013 Russian law which bans the “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations to minors.” The text of the Russian law may be found at the “School of Russian and Asiatic Studies” website. In a letter to Leno, Sergey Petrov, the Russian consul-general in San Francisco, defended the law: “Family, motherhood and childhood in the traditional sense are values that lead to the preservation and development” of Russia, and “therefore require special protection from the state.”

Leno’s opposition to the Russian law, which is shared by President Obama and the international homosexualist movement is further evidence, if more were needed, that the war over the family is international and civilizational in scope. Patrick Buchanan succinctly summed up the issue in the title of an August 13 article “Post v. Putin-Whose Side are you On?” The article’s first sentence was “The culture war has gone global.” And war it is. As we have noted before, in the book Debating Same-Sex Marriage, co-authored by John Corvino and Maggie Gallagher, Corvino, who supports same-sex “marriage” wrote: “Whichever side prevails in this debate, the other’s views will be marginalized. There’s no getting around that.”

Corvino’s assertion has been proved. While Leno, President Obama, and others are outraged by the Russian law, retaliation against defenders of natural marriage in the United States and other countries show that the Russian law is justified. Critics of the Russian law say its wording is ambiguous, and “could outlaw activities from kissing or holding hands to wearing a rainbow pin.” But so what? The list of people in the United States and other countries who have already been fined, fired, suspended from their jobs, relieved of their military duties, simply for expressing opposition to same-sex “marriage” is far too long to include here: Canadian sportscaster Damian Goddard fired for expressing opposition to same-sex “marriage”; consultant Frank Turek fired from both Cisco and the Bank of America because he authored the book Not Politically Correct: How Same-sex Marriage Hurts Everyone; Teacher of the Year Jerry Buell suspended for expressing his opposition to same-sex marriage; Air Force Master Sergeant of 19 years Phillip Monk relieved of duty because he disagreed with lesbian commanding officer about same-sex “marriage”; florist Baronelle Stutzmann sued by the attorney general of Washington because she refused to provide flowers to a same-sex “wedding”; Sweet Cakes Bakery in Oregon closing rather than provide goods to a same-sex “wedding,” etc. etc.

The contrast between the Russian and American responses to the attack of the international homosexualist movement is disturbing. It may be explained in part by the still existing experience of a Russian identity by the Russian people, and the decayed experience of an American identity among the American people. It raises the question: to what extent does an “American identity” still exist? Since the 1960’s, America has been plagued by an ever-growing number of “group identities” to which many people give primary loyalty. The one commonality among such “group identities” is that much of their meaning is defined by simply being in opposition to the American mainstream. But as “group identities” have grown another question arises: what happens when those professing “group identities” outnumber those who identify simply as Americans?

When one walks around my native city of San Francisco, which Senator Leno, a transplant, represents, the number of homosexualist rainbow flags one sees outnumbers the American flags. It is thought-provoking to see, for instance, on the 3000 block of Pacific Avenue, a large rainbow flag flying just a few doors down from where the Egyptian flag flies in front of the Egyptian Consulate. Ditto for the 3500 block of Clay Street where the Korean flag flies in front of the Korean Consulate and four doors away one sees a large rainbow flag flying in front of a large lavender-colored house. Flags are a public assertion of loyalty. This juxtaposition of flags expressing loyalty to a nation flying next to flags expressing loyalty to a group with similar sexual proclivities should provoke anyone to stop and think about what that means for a society.

The loyalty the rainbow flag expresses is a loyalty to anyone anywhere who shares the same sexual proclivities. That identity is obviously supra-national or sub-national. It is a loyalty based on one of the most fundamental of biological drives: animal sexual desire. It is also sexuality unmoored from both responsibility and sexuality’s primary purpose: children. The simple sense of Consul Petrov’s justification of Russia’s law to Senator Leno then becomes crystal clear: “Family, motherhood and childhood in the traditional sense are values that lead to the preservation and development (of Russia, and) therefore require special protection from the state.”