WATCH: Russian Group Issues Virulently Homophobic Video

A Russian group’s video making the rounds on the Internet uses bad science and homophobic lies against LGBT people, saying, for instance, that they adopt children so they can abuse the children sexually.

The Russian-language, English-subtitled video, from a group called Healthy Young Generation–Healthy Russia, makes the unfounded claims that “one in three children being raised by same-sex couples were needed by their adopted parents for sex” and that “50% of pedophiles are gay.” It also asserts that “gay people die 20-30 years before normal people” and that sexual orientation can be changed readily, “treated more easily than alcoholism.”

Gay activist and blogger John Aravosis posted the video to YouTube “to expose the level of hatred that gay and trans people face in Russia,” he wrote on the site. He added, “We have no better messenger than these videos to prove to people worldwide just how bad things have gotten in Russia,” which this year adopted a law banning what it calls “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations,” basically prohibiting any show of support for LGBT people that could be accessible to minors.

As evidence for some of its claims, the video cites the study on gay parents published last year by University of Texas professor Mark Regnerus. That study has been criticized as not providing a true picture of parenting by same-sex couples. Regnerus did not focus on children raised in the households of stable same-sex couples, but rather on children whose mother or father had ever had a same-sex relationship. Even Regnerus has said his study has been misunderstood, and this week he specifically denounced a Russian legislator for citing it as justification for a proposed law to remove children from gay parents’ households. Such a move would harm children by subjecting them to instability in their family lives, he wrote on The Atlantic’s website.

Also, noted The New Civil Rights Movement, the video appears to be based partly on an Internet article titled “Everyone Should Know These Statistics on Homosexuals,” which also makes many dubious, homophobic claims. Dave Agema, a Republican National Committee member and former Michigan state representative, received much denunciation when he posted the article to Facebook last spring.

The video is below. Be forewarned, it’s extremely offensive.



