Russia targets gay ‘propaganda’

Thestar ^ | Apr 18 2012 | Michael Birnbaum

[klpt]

ST. PETERSBURG—The anti-Western rhetoric that dominated Russia’s recent elections has a new focus, with gays targeted as symbols of Western permissiveness in a wave of laws being adopted across the country.

Here in St. Petersburg, a city that prides itself as the most European in Russia, the lawmaker behind a new local ban on gay “propaganda” has said that he is defending traditional Russian values against an onslaught from the West. Gay activists — two of whom were the first to go on trial this week on charges of violating the new law — counter that the rules will legitimize homophobic attitudes and aggression even as Europe and the United States move toward acceptance.

St. Petersburg’s parliament was the latest to enact such a law, which imposes fines of up to $17,000 for spreading “propaganda of sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality or transgenderism among minors,” and the national parliament in recent weeks has taken up similar legislation. In a country where a 2010 poll by the respected Levada Center found that 74 percent of Russians deemed gays and lesbians “morally dissolute or deficient,” advocates for gay rights worry that the laws could rapidly become more common.

“The homophobic mood is growing in society, and minorities are getting more and more afraid,” said Igor Kochetkov, head of Coming Out, a gay rights group in St. Petersburg. This week, he appeared in a cramped courtroom to defend himself against charges that he spread gay propaganda to minors when he held a sign on a crowded street corner that said, “No to the silencing of crimes against gays and lesbians.”

[klpt]

[allmost]

The lack of an active ‘wall’ seems to mute the tsar’s commands.

[Lazlo in PA]

No excuse to be involved in faggotry over there. If you can find a chick under 30, your are in great shape.

After 30 the babushka years set in.

Believe it or not, this old bag is 32.

[allmost]

i suddenly have an affinity for purple.

[DrGunsforHands]

[Venturer]

Any man who can look at that beautiful woman and still want a man’s butt is one sick SOB.

[hoosierham]

In 1973 ,homsexuality was removed from the list of mental disorders in the U.S.,the same year abortion was legalized;neither act has benefited the U.S.