The perfect example of the phenomenon you describe is in Israel, where Israeli society prides itself on its ‘liberality’ with regard to gay rights…whilst Mossad targets young gay Palestinians to blackmail them into becoming informers.

This ‘is’ on The Saker’s blog:
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6) New! Any comment stating or implying that homosexuality is a “normal and natural variation of human sexuality” goes to trash; this blog has decided to emulate the city of Moscow and has therefore banned any types of (virtual) “gay-pride” (aka homosexual dysfunction) “parades” in the comments section, also for the next 100 years. Simply put: take your propaganda of homosexuality elsewhere 😛
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I find it incredible that for pointing that out on a supposedly progressive website, I am accused of attacking someone. I think I’ll just ignore you from here on. I don’t need the bloody grief.

The notion that “gay rights” — and let’s remember that the USSR was the FIRST country in the world to decriminalize homosexuality, several decades before any other country in the world followed suit — are a key indicator of progressive values is the product of liberal, neocon ideology. The paid and unpaid ideologues of neoliberalism use the state-approved and indeed state-engineered prioritizing of GLBT rights in the West as well as Israel to buy for their states a moral cover for imperialism, an absolutely conscience-free turbo-capitalism, ethnic cleansing, and the destruction of entire countries (Iraq, Libya, the attempted destruction of Syria, etc.) they finds recalcitrant or resistant to their demands.
Those who do really care for the rights of homosexuals and lesbians to any extent at all, instead of attacking an individual who, as far as anybody knows, has never discriminated against or harmed any gay person, will use their energies and ethical convictions to attack the thoroughly unethical practice of ALL NATO-sphere societies of maintaining full trading relations with countries such as Saudi Arabia and the like, to whom, in complete and openly cynical defiance of any morality at all, they blithely sell weapons of mass destruction, too.
Everything else is hot air and moral posturing — in the interests of the neoliberal empire.

Matt, Can you give me a link to the “anti-semitic” article on RI? I think RI carries some interesting stuff, but it’s dodgy. The first thing that jumped out at me was the ra, ra, ra Russian military. Bravado is awful (foolish prophecies about certain victory) and progressives know that militaries, besides being the means that a nation (big enough) employs to defend itself, are also a racket and bad for economies. Ergo…

” … Rolf Harris t-shirt.” LOL.
Oh yes, I understand how the Holocaust happened soooooo much better now. I am not surrounded by the people you describe but by people I’d describe as being generally pretty politically similar to me … except for recognising false flags and similar crimes. Drives me crazy and alienates me to quite a degree, although I have to admit I do have an unhealthy interest in them. I think Edward Curtin’s article, Denying the Obvious; Leftists and Crimestop https://off-guardian.org/2018/02/09/denying-the-obvious-leftists-and-crimestop/ captures perfectly how I feel.

I’ve just read all the way through the Saker’s ‘about’ and there is only one very ambiguous and minimal reference to gay rights. It hardly amounts to a ‘rant’. Nor does it really indicate what he thinks. It is entirely possible that he is merely objecting to the obsession with identity politics that has come to dominate so many NGOs, which is perfectly reasonable; I have very dear gay friends who also dislike this as they feel that it receives far too much attention and is therefore counter-productive. I also have a very close gay friend who thinks it is entirely reasonable for traditional Christians to object to homosexuality; in his view, we are in danger of turning a witch-hunt of gay people into a witch-hunt of conservatives, which is every bit as unacceptable.
I suspect, from what I have previously read, that the Saker shares the opinion of many Russians about homosexuality – let it be legal, as long as it does not threaten family and social stability. That may not satisfy some gay rights campaigners, but it is not an unreasonable position, given the greater stress placed on communal harmony in that country. People who live in the highly individualistic and materialistic West (and I am one of them obviously) forget that for most of human history survival itself was entirely dependent on cultivating social harmony and unity. That is the origin of all intolerance, as disruptive forces threatened the group, so there are very logical reasons for conservative attitudes, even if we do not share them.
Ultimately it is simplistic to suppose that there are only two possible positions – violently pro or violently anti ‘gay rights’. Even the notion of a singular ‘gay rights’ is a distortion. The reality is that there are myriad options in between, particularly as there are very different attitudes to how people should express their sexuality in public in general, whether one is gay or straight.
In any case, just because he holds one opinion that some may disagree with, it doesn’t invalidate his ideas about other matters. I for one am always glad to read his articles, which are reasoned and insightful.
The world will never heal so long as we are inclined to react hysterically when we encounter people who have obviously good intentions, but may feel differently about some cultural Shibboleth or other.

We do not support racism of any kind and completely deplore RI’s attacks on Jewish people.
We aren’t pro-Kremlin. Or anti-Kremlin. We are pro-truth. And sadly most of the most dangerous lies are coming from the extreme neo-liberals and neo-conservatives currently controlling most of western foreign and domestic policy. Should the situation change OffG would reflect that change as accurately as possible.
We aren’t going to debate our policy here, please don’t reply to this thread with any further attacks on us which simply divert the discussion.

I’ve gotten tired of warning people about this. Many alt-media websites, most of which are uniformly pro-Kremlin, like to re-post articles from various pro-Russian nationalist websites. I can’t find it now, but there used to be a “sites you should read” section here, which included Russia Insider, a website which published a deeply anti-semitic article that was condemned by other pro-Russian websites.
Many so-called “progressive” websites are not actually progressive at all. They’ll republish anything by anyone, as long as it’s anti-West.