What Russia isn't

Miriam Elder of Buzzfeed examines why Russia passed their recent draconian anti-gay law. There are a few reasons.

The first is Russia's birth rate collapsed along with the Soviet empire. Putin is personally crusading to raise it. Alas, I'm still puzzled how he thinks persecuting gays will make that happen. Perhaps he believes that gays would enter straight marriages and produce kids. The low birth rate is part of the reason why Putin put a stop to adoption of Russian kids by outsiders even though he blames America allowing gay parents to adopt.

The second reasons has to do with the question, "How is Russia to remain Russia?" Nobody really has an answer to that question. It seems the answer, according to Putin, is Russia isn't the West. So he is fostering the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church (strongly anti-gay). That resulted in a new law that bans "insulting religious believers." Putin is also rejecting Western ideals such as acceptance of homosexuality. Putin doesn't know what Russia is, only what it isn't.

And the third reason, which has shown to be quite useful to our own GOP, is for Putin to tell the masses he will protect them from The Other. This time around The Other, fortunately, can't be Jews (a Jewish neighbor rescued a young Putin from being beaten by neighborhood kids) and can't be migrants. That leaves gays.

Since Putin is trying to distinguish Russia from the West it means protests by Western nations will only stiffen Putin's resolve.