[LINK] "For Gays, a Loud New Foe"

[rfmcdonald]

aardvarkpark recently posted a link to Rone Tempest's Los Angeles Times article "For Gays, a Loud New Foe", is at once a study on immigration and an examination of a certain kind of homophobia. According to the article, many members of the large Russian and Ukrainian immigrant community in California's capital city of Sacramento have become prominent in their adopted community thanks to their virulent homophobia, including the harassment of individuals attending gay functions and public claims that HIV/AIDS is a message from God.

The size of the community--estimated by Tempest by number approximately one hudnred thousand people--seems to be product of a near-classic example of chain migration: "Before emigrating, many of the refugees learned about Sacramento from two sources: a short-wave fundamentalist religious radio program, "Word to Russia," that originated here, and a Russian-language newspaper, Our Days, that was printed in Sacramento and distributed to underground churches in the Soviet Union. A local Russian Baptist church persuaded several Sacramento evangelical churches to sponsor the refugees." This immigrant community, unlike other immigrant communities from the former Soviet Union elsewhere in the United States, thus was composed of individuals pre-selected from their moral conservatism. In retrospect, it's unsurprising that this religious community experienced culture clash on a large scale, motivated in no small part by concern for the survival of their new community's mores in the context of a corrosive liberalism.

Sacramento has more than 70 Russian fundamentalist congregations. One of them, Bethany Missionary Slavic Church, has 3,200 members and claims to be the largest Russian-language church outside of Europe.

"Sacramento is the No. 1 gathering place for non-Jewish, non-Russian Orthodox, fundamentalist Russian and Ukrainian immigrants," said University of Oregon geographer Susan W. Hardwick, an expert on the Russian immigrant community. Similar but smaller communities, Hardwick said, have established themselves in Portland and Seattle, where they also are beginning to flex their political muscle.

But nowhere approaches Sacramento, which has a 24-hour Russian-language cable television station, two radio stations and several newspapers, all of which push a conservative message marked by strident opposition to homosexuality. A recent edition of the Speaker, for example, promoted a book, "The Pink Swastika," that contends that the extermination of Jews during World War II was the work of homosexuals inside the Nazi Party.

For Sacramento gay leaders, the sudden appearance of organized demonstrators was a major shock after years of building support in the state capital.

"We've been accepted and were just perking along," said Sloan, a 69-year-old church pastor and co-founder of Lambda Community Center, which serves the gay community. "That's why this Russian thing was such a jolt to people."

Perhaps fortunately for the evangelical Russian-Ukrainian community in Sacramento, this homophobia seems to have ensured their integration into their adopted community, earning them the praise of other evangelicals who praise their energy and even allowing them to influence California's political process.

On Sept. 5, the day after the Sacramento Rainbow Festival, several hundred sign-wielding demonstrators appeared at the Capitol to oppose a state Senate bill, SB 1437, that would have banned negative references based on sexual orientation from state textbooks and classes.

In the crowd were Bondar's mother, father and grandmother.

The next day, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill, stating that protection against discrimination already existed in state law.

"We may not have gotten the veto without them," said Thomasson, who spearheaded the lobbying effort against the bill.

To [Galina] Bondar, the veto was a clear victory.

"Very satisfying," she said. "It shows people who participated in the civic process that their hard work was not in vain."