Hunted: The War Against Gays in Russia

I recently watched Hunted: The War Against Gays in Russia and let me tell you that I am just amazed at how scary things are there.  As someone who fully supports gay rights I have to say that the gay community has it really good here...in comparison that is.  In Russia there are groups who actually hunt gays for sport & it’s not exactly frowned upon.  Even though homosexuality was legalized over 20 years ago….yes I said legalized, it is currently believed that only 1% of homosexuals live openly in Russia.  Gay people are targeted by the state & hunted by vigilantes.  There are numerous vigilante organizations there & we get to see inside & learn some about them & there is one group who has decided to hand out soap & ropes in bags at a gay film festival suggesting that the people kill themselves to cleanse the world of their kind. Later they call in a bomb threat to break up the festival.

15 years ago homosexuality was removed from the list of mental illnesses in Russia but most people still believe gays need to be treated for their mental & physical disease. It really boggles my mind that so many people think that being gay is no different than being a pedophile or murderer, like they are mentally unstable & need to be fixed.  All over Russia they use pedophile & homosexual interchangeably…people are so against homosexuality because they believe gay people all to be ruining their children because they are all pedophiles as well.  I knew things in Russia were “rough” but this is extremely disturbing & just plain fucked up! 

The vigilante group entraps gay men to hunt & then they video tape the beatings & tortures that they do & upload the videos to the internet & tons of people go & watch them like we do puppy videos & Jimmy Fallon clips.  The authorities turn a blind eye to the videos on the internet & use laws against gay propaganda to make it OK…they also use the laws to make it easier to arrest gays & protestors.

During an “interview” of a gay man by one of the vigilante groups I was amused to see that in the apartment of the vigilante man he has a poster of Michael Jackson hanging on the wall…not sure if it’s a pro or anti poster but if it’s pro they are even more disturbed than I thought considering they claim all of these men are pedophiles.

The thing I learned most by watching this documentary is that there’s pretty much a gay holocaust going on in Russia & most people there don’t really mind. Kids from same sex couples can be taken away & turned over to the state if a law that’s stalled at the moment ends up passing.  I feel sooesn’t  bad for anyone suffering because of who they are and for anyone who lives somewhere that dallow them the freedom to fall in love.  When so many nations have taken leaps forward it’s hard to understand how other places just seem to keep running backward and ignoring the strides that I thought the world had made for human rights. 

Don’t miss this one, tune in tomorrow, Monday, October 6 at 9:00 & watch the trailer below.