<story><title>Google shows support for LGBT Olympians</title><url>https://www.google.com/webhp?tab=ww&amp;authuser=0&amp;ei=rCT0UvnANsH_igLy2IDQCw&amp;ved=0CBgQ1S4</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>boyter</author><text>The LGBT Russia thing is totally blown out of proportion.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scribd.com/doc/203382931/Russian-Lgbt-Law-White-Paper&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.scribd.com&amp;#x2F;doc&amp;#x2F;203382931&amp;#x2F;Russian-Lgbt-Law-White-P...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Before you decide to down-vote me into oblivion and accuse me of hating minority groups please read the white paper linked above. Note I am not affiliated with the person who wrote it or scribd. I just want people to see both sides of the argument.&lt;p&gt;EDIT - And what a surprise down-voted. Seriously did anyone clicking the down arrow actually read the paper? Considering how long it is and that this post is 5 minutes old I seriously doubt it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>magicalist</author><text>Still reading, but impressions on the intro and first chapter: what a totally bizarre paper. It&amp;#x27;s a &amp;quot;white paper&amp;quot;, but it&amp;#x27;s written as an autobiographical narrative of his research process. And usually &amp;quot;Executive Summary&amp;quot; does not refer to a top 10 list.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s very obviously written for the purposes of advocacy, despite protestations that it&amp;#x27;s not. The defense of this law seems to be:&lt;p&gt;1) It&amp;#x27;s not that bad. It doesn&amp;#x27;t target the LGBT community, it just bans any sort of public acknowledgement of a class of people that just &lt;i&gt;happens&lt;/i&gt; to include LGBT folks.&lt;p&gt;2) The media has blown this way out of proportion by saying what the law only implies. Also by not mentioning that the law was enacted to protect the children. Why don&amp;#x27;t they mention the children?&lt;p&gt;3) Even if the law is that bad, it hasn&amp;#x27;t been enforced much yet.&lt;p&gt;4) Even if the law is bad, those guys over there are just as bed.&lt;p&gt;Oh yeah, definitely want to consider both sides of this argument.&lt;p&gt;Just out of curiosity, boyter. When you refer to &amp;quot;both sides&amp;quot;, how would you sum up the other side in one sentence? &amp;quot;It&amp;#x27;s not that bad&amp;quot; is not, in fact, a defense of anything.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google shows support for LGBT Olympians</title><url>https://www.google.com/webhp?tab=ww&amp;authuser=0&amp;ei=rCT0UvnANsH_igLy2IDQCw&amp;ved=0CBgQ1S4</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>boyter</author><text>The LGBT Russia thing is totally blown out of proportion.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scribd.com/doc/203382931/Russian-Lgbt-Law-White-Paper&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.scribd.com&amp;#x2F;doc&amp;#x2F;203382931&amp;#x2F;Russian-Lgbt-Law-White-P...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Before you decide to down-vote me into oblivion and accuse me of hating minority groups please read the white paper linked above. Note I am not affiliated with the person who wrote it or scribd. I just want people to see both sides of the argument.&lt;p&gt;EDIT - And what a surprise down-voted. Seriously did anyone clicking the down arrow actually read the paper? Considering how long it is and that this post is 5 minutes old I seriously doubt it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>devilshaircut</author><text>&amp;quot;Both sides of the argument.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;That Russia has a reasonable political platform regarding its LGBT citizens? I am not sure that it is possible to &amp;#x27;blow out of proportion&amp;#x27; what is most certainly a human rights issue. This was your own assertion, not that of the paper&amp;#x27;s.&lt;p&gt;The topic was the Google Doodle showing support for LGBT people and your first impulse is to imply that the situation in Russia is in fact a non-issue.&lt;p&gt;That is why you were downvoted, man.</text></comment>