Friday, April 14, 2017

US Response To Chechen Gay Torture: Nothing

I saw this today:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/13/they-called-us-animals-chechens-prison-beatings-electric-shocks-anti-gay-purge

My response to the website that posted it:

I’ve known about this for a couple of weeks, no thanks to US news.  They’ve been avoiding it like crazy.  However, news of the increasing horror and brutality has been reported on a US LGBTI blog called joemygod.
One of my more disgusting reactions has been “Don’t even try to send any of these men to the US.”  In the first place, with all of the stupid ideology in place, they probably wouldn’t make it through customs. Our “president” has made it all right to go back to hating gays…not that it ever went away completely, but it died down after the marriage equality ruling. And we are overly suspicious of foreigners.
We have a gigantic statue on an island just outside New York.  It’s this big woman in a robe, points of freedom jutting out from her head.  In one hand she’s holding a tablet inscribed with the date of our Declaration of Independence; in the other she holds a torch, lighting the way to a new, better land.  As one person described it, “The torch represents enlightenment and the plaque represents knowledge,” both of which seem to be in short supply in the US these days.
The Statue of Liberty was seen as a welcoming, “you’re safe now” symbol to immigrants and, equally important, to refugees fleeing terror in their own countries.  Inscribed at the base: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse from your teeming shores.  Send these, the hopeless, tempest-tossed to me.  I raise my lamp beside the golden door.”  How quaint.  Before “President” #45 was sworn in on January 20, 2017, one could actually believe that.
I cannot begin to tell you how much I hate saying that I would discourage any of the LGBTI Chechens to seek asylum in the US…not because I’m anti-refugee or anti-gay (I’m gay), but because they would face humiliation trying to enter the country and then would be denied admission...and if any of them did manage to get in, they would face endless discrimination.
I am horrified by how low the US has sunk in only 3 months.  Both the Chechen terror and the US lack of response are very distressing to me.  
The country is not what it was.