Obscured by Clouds: Underrated?

Yeah, and at the current rate I don't see the majority of the minorities flocking over to the GOP anytime soon

Because the GOP is the home of the extremist religious Right

*Bans memes*
*Steals rights from homosexuals*
*Drops bombs on other countries constantly for no fair reason*

Yeah Putin seems like a pretty good guy to me

Not a good enough justification....

The Evan McMullin guy didn't call Obama an "evil dictator" for his action did he? 
And I assume we're only talking about indepdent Russia and not the Soviet Union, the actions of Russia are justified if you think of it as they're attempting to assert their power and indepdence from the western world. 

1. Fair enough, I must be misinformed and I take back what I said.
2. Christian society? And? What's your point? I'm aware that the Old Testament has several deeply homophobic passages however when Jesus came along he made it clear that he wanted to fulfil the Old Testament and it's most important morals that have been ignored over countless centuries. This formed the basis of the New Testament, which taught forgiveness. Now, don't get me wrong I don't agree with everything in the Bible and therefore feel that even if I was to believe in god it would not click with my own morals. I realise human beings are flawed and therefore many christians would argue you need someone of perfection to guide you to do the right thing, as opposed to you and your imperfect views making that decision. That's fair and that makes sense and if you want to live like that, good for you, it's probably quite rewarding. However my philosophy of life is to be as authentic a human being as possible. And following god does not gel with that. Given the bible teaches you not to lie, then I think that if there is a god, he would be okay with me making that choice for myself, as much as it may disappoint him. Now there are still some vaguely anti-gay comments in the New Testament as men and women were made to recreate so same sex relations prevents that and is therefore completely unnecessary. Which if that's your belief and you're not using it an excuse to be hurtful than I understand. However Jesus said to a group of religious leaders of the time who wanted to stone an adulterer "He who is without sin, may cast the first stone". They all dropped the stones and walked off. It reinforces that human nature is imperfect and if you believe in God and have a relationship with them and forgive people and are kind of to one another, following the core of the bible's rules as best as possible whilst occasionally faltering them, you may enter into the gates of Heaven. Many churches are open to the LGBT community because of this, and Jesus himself said things that showed heterosexual immorality and homosexual immorality are one and the same. The bible if you actually dissect it is not as prejudice as it appears to be. Christians who use some vaguely anti-gay things and take them out of context are doing it to take advantage of their own prejudices and be hateful to people, which is not what christianity is about. Putin should listen to his people yes, but he should listen to the ones who genuinely suffer. Not the rich snobs who claim to be christians.
3. Of course the US have done this. I'm not defending it. Yet that doesn't make it an excuse for Putin to do it. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Putin is scum. 

1. Okie
2. Okay firstly, since Russia belives in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, I have no idea how different it is from the Bible you're quoting from. The problem isn't even the masses, actually, it's not the rich people as well, it's the people who run the Church, the Apostles or whatever, the guys wearing black suits that demonize everything that they believe to be immoral and tells everyone that such things are immoral. This is why the younger generation of less-religeous Russians are considerably more pro-gay. The thing is since these Apostles have all the power in the Church, to ignore them and go against their views would be political suicide. Along with the Apostles come the Church-goers who have been systematically taught to believe in these things. If Putin comes out for gays, then all these churchgoers and the Apostles are going to launch a huge campaign against Putin (Just look what they did with the UEK or UEC), meaning that his political career would be over. Putin's a normal guy like us and he wants to keep in power, and I'm fairly certain that gay people are the least of his concerns right now. They've never really been a big part of Putin's rhetoric, why? Because the people already know that Russia would never elect a pro-gay leader. 
3. Russia is defending their power against the west. The west was the one who was involved in these wars first and Russia simply want to defend their position on the global stage and their views.

He's not the best guy on the planet but he's far from scum. In fact, at the very least he advocates for religeous and ethnic harmony. 

Lol

Also that Evan McMullin guy...Yea, that's what he said. At least about the gay part he said he won't repeal the decision (with grudge) but he just wants to stop talking about it overall. 

His views at least better than most Republicans. To be honest his views are just straight up stupid. 

1. Putin's not one of those people. His main concern isn't even that, he wants to reinstate Russia as a global power, he doesn't care much about the social situation about Russia. He cares aobut the global position of Russia. I don't like the concept of wars either, but if Russia didn't interfere, the West was going to continously blame Russia for everything. Remember how they continously pointed out the nonexistent "Russian threat" in the Baltic states and Eastern Ukraine and focused about arming those people while distracting the world from the actions of the USA in the middle east, ruthlessly bombing innocents, equipping ISIS, creating refugees, kidnapping people, while at the same time convincing NATO and the EU to take sanctions against Russia, because they know Russia is the only nation in their way of their imperialism, the only country that can stop them and hence their first goal was to put an eternal restraint on Russia. Russia needed to defend and clean up the mess of the USA in the middle east, firstly as a decent nation and secondly to showcase their power against the West. America wouldn't idly sit by and take Russia control of everything in the world, would they? 

2. I don't know if he's homophobic, he's a professional and doesn't speak of his beliefs. If he restricts the church, firstly that's restricting freedom of religeon, and what about the churchgoers? You know the majority of Russians don't go to Church, but they still identify as Orthodox, and isolating 90% of Russia's European christian population is not a good way to go about doing politics. In a nation of 126 million, do you think it's easier to accept the social norms of the majority and focus on the more important issues, or attempt to change the way all 100 million people think, while the USA gets their way in the world? 

1. Russia and China are the only two countries who have the power to actually stop the United States. I'll agree that Putin should focus more on social issues, but Russia returning to a geopolitical stage in the world is also important for Putin as well. 

2. Putin never directly mentioned religeon at all, but again, what's going on is there's a general social atmosphere of homophobia, and Putin has to go with that to please the people. I don't agree with his policies, but they're understable. 

You do realize that in Russia a pro-gay leader would never be elected right? If Putin comes out pro-gay, he's essentially threatening not only his political career but also potentially his life as well. 

Nearly burst out laughing reading that lmao

Legalise gay marriage? That's the last of my concerns? Not that I disagree with gay marriage, I don't. I think every human being should have a right to marry other human being they love. Yet Russia's far from there yet. You're 100% right that it's not that simple and we need to take one step at a time. However same sex couples aren't legal either. You can't be a male with a boyfriend or a female with a girlfriend and walk around holding hands or you'll be arrested and thrown in jail. That needs to change and it needs to change now. Safe, easy decision? No, right decision? YES. People who harass gay people will be more likely to be arrested if same sex couples can walk along the streets happily. Most of the western world legalised that decades ago. Also despite it being entirely legal to throw pride parades as activists the police have been witnessed to completely allow the organisers of the events and other activists to be beaten nearly to death and continue to arrest the harassed gay people who commited zero crime and in one case (of likely many) that I read, let the neo-nazis get off scot free. This is not Putin's fault but he is still enabling it by not putting sanctions of police brutality and corruption in the force. He has also silenced journalists for speaking their opinions on the subject. What is this North Korea?