The More Russia Changes, The More It Stays the Same.

A gay rights rally is broken up in Moscow, and its members are arrested. Meanwhile, a right-wing nationalist antigay march proceeds with state support and the blessing of the Orthodox Church.

I always get in trouble for this, accused of "guilt by association," but I've always asked our right wing antagonists to take a look at who's with them on their side of this issue. Right now, about 30 gay activists are getting beat up at a Moscow police station, while hundreds of Hitler-grussing skinheads are marching through the Moscow streets shoulder to shoulder with Orthodox clergy and die-hard old Communists.

Look at all the really toxic loonies on the anti- side. Fred Phelps and his gang are just one of many. We have our loonies on our side, but they are nothing compared to the sheer toxicity of extremists like Phelps, or Archbishop Akinola. I wouldn't want to be on the same side of any issue as the Neo-Nazis I saw in New York some years ago chanting "gas the fags!" Robert Mugabe regularly gay bashes in his rhetoric. He uses gays as bogey men in his attacks on the "decadent" West. The Islamists are about as friendly to gays as cats are to canaries. The mullahs have no more love for the gay-friendly liberal West than do GAFCON's apologists, or the Vatican. Keeping such company may not say anything about our antagonists, but it does say a whole lot about that side of the gay emancipation issue, in my opinion.