Something pretty amazing happened today on Russia's partially state-funded news network RT (formerly Russia Today). RT, in the interest of context, has shown support for the anti-gay law that was recently passed out of Moscow and has claimed that the law's American critics have "warped" views. Well, today, openly gay journalist and foreign correspondent (who has written for the New York Times) James Kirchick brazenly criticized Russia's homophobia during a panel segment. And did I mention that he was also wearing rainbow suspenders? The awesome is pretty heavy in this one.
The panel segment was apparently supposed to be about Bradley Manning. But Kirchick decided to use his couple of minutes to lambast the Russian government and highlight the ever-increasing reports of homophobic violence coming out of Russia. He began by quoting the gay playwright Harvey Fierstein: "When evil shows its face, you have to answer." And then, this:
Being here on a Kremlin-funded propaganda network, I'm gonna wear my gay pride suspenders, and I'm gonna speak out against the horrific anti-gay legislation that Vladimir Putin has signed into law, that was passed by the Russian Duma, that criminalizes homosexual propaganda [and] that effectively makes it illegal to talk about homosexuality in public.
When the host tried to get Kirchick to talk about Bradley Manning, he responded with this:
I'm not really interested in talking about Bradley Manning. I'm interested in talking about the horrific environment of homophobia in Russia right now. And to let the Russian gay people know that they have friends and allies and solidarity from people all over the world. And that we are not going to be silent in the face of this horrific repression that is perpetrated by your paymasters, by Vladimir Putin. That's what I'm here to talk about.
Boom.
He went on to ask the host how she slept at night while other journalists are being silenced and harassed.
Watch for yourself:
After a couple of minutes, of course, Kirchick was cut off and completely disappeared from the panel segment, and I'm sure a discussion about Bradley Manning was had. Later, Kirchick tweeted the following:
True fact: @RT_com just called taxi company that took me to studio to drop me off on the side of the highway on way to Stockholm airport
Bravo to Kirchick for standing up to RT on this.