Posted on 07/06/2012 7:22:29 AM PDT by scottjewell
Gay pride in St Petersburg has been banned and the organizers charged under the Russian city's anti-gay 'propaganda' law.
Authorities yesterday (5 July) rejected an application by LGBT group Ravnopravie (Equality) to hold the city's third annual pride tomorrow (7 July), despite initially authorizing the event on Tuesday (3 July).
City Hall claimed the decision to ban the march for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights was in response to local media reports that called the event 'gay pride' rather than a 'march and a stationary rally' as described in the application.
After the application was rejected, Yury Gavrikov, head of Ravnopravie, told Chtodelat News that he and another fellow organizer Sergei Volkov were then charged by police officers under the city's so-called 'homosexual propaganda' law which can be used to gag any public discussion of LGBT issues or events targeted at gay and trans people.
Gavrikov says police accused them of distributing information to the media which 'promote[d] the social equality of same-sex relationships and traditional marriage' among minors.
The St Petersburg 'gay gag' bill has fines of up to 1 million roubles ($34,400 €25,000) for organizations and up to 5,000 roubles ($172 €125) for individuals.
Speaking to RIA Novosti, St Petersburg governor Georgy Poltavchenko’s spokesman Andrei Kibitov claimed the public were also against the pride march.
He said: 'A great number of calls and emails have been received not only from St. Petersburg, but from the other Russian cities as well, asking [us] to cancel the gay parade.'
Ravnopravie has vowed to go ahead with the demonstration despite the decision but officials warned that they would be breaking the law if they did.
Applications to hold the parade in the last two years have been rejected, with authorities claiming it could damage buildings, cause road accidents or violated the rights of pedestrians not participating in the rally.
[how the ban first appeared]Russia’s second city has banned the promotion of gay lifestyles in the presence of children. The newly-adopted bill bans any public activity that “might encourage paedophilia.”
Under the proposed legislation, promoting homosexuality will be punishable by fines ranging from 5,000 rubles ($168) for individuals to 500,000 rubles ($16,800) for legal entities. This is almost 10 times more than in the first version of the law.
The bill, first submitted back in November 2011, outraged Russia’s human rights and gay rights watchdogs. They claimed that the wording was too discriminatory. The new version of the law explains what exactly is meant by “public activities aimed at the propaganda of sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality, and transgender among youth.” As the law goes, such actions imply that “spreading information that can damage the health and moral development of underage children, and make them believe that both traditional and gay relationships are normal."
http://www.rt.com/news/prime-time/lgbt-law-petersburg-scandal-835/
The real troubling part of this article is that, anyone familiar with St Petersburg, Florida....knows that it was not St Pete, FL they were talking about.
The former Commies are less homophillic than their US city namesake
Also, Moscow banned “Gay Pride” events for 100 years recently - upheld (of course) by the courts there. Mayor of Moscow called the homosexual activists “satanists”.
I work in and commute to St. Petersburg, FL every day. The gay pride is very visible and getting worse. Tampa and St. Petersburg city councils both recently approved legal domestic partnerships. Seen a lot of folks at work with Cheshire grins as of late.
The Agenda is growing.
The Russians know that would happen so they wisely banned the recruiting, while we encourage it.
Ruin our culture by destroying marriage and the man-woman relationship and you have destroyed the country.
Russians are much smarter than us in this case.
Homosexuality can only lead to more promiscuity
A sexual act that means nothing except getting an orgasm.
No love, no respect, no connections,no commitments, (the marriages are just a farce and a means of getting the advantages of married couples while fornicating with anything that comes along) Just get it on, jump off and move on.
Right, we know at a glance that it cannot be any city in the U.S. What a great gulf is fixed between our St. Petersburg, and theirs!
What is interesting to me is the Russian’s idea of “corrupting minors” and “spreading propaganda about sodomy” and “lifestyles which might promote pedophilia”. All of this is what Peter LeBarbara of AFTAH says here in the U.S., which earned him a top ranking on the list of “Hate Groups in America”!!
Who would ever have imagined that RUSSIA would be the last bastion of morality left???!?
Exactly what someone like LeBarbara says, which makes him viewed as a ranting bigot: It is a sad commentary when Russians are more attuned to health and logic than us:
“The new version of the law explains what exactly is meant by “public activities aimed at the propaganda of sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality, and transgender among youth.” As the law goes, such actions imply that “spreading information that can damage the health and moral development of underage children, and make them believe that both traditional and gay relationships are normal.”
Yes that was the first thing I noticed, the Russian authorities have decided to prevent the gay agitators from controlling and using the language to glorify gays and gay actions and demonize and condemn hetero actions.
It is propaganda control.
For a split second I thought it was St. Petersburg,Florida.
Well, oddly enough it is their history of state control as opposed to our democratic free speech which allows them to swiftly sweep in on this kind of thing, nipping it in the bud. Ironic, really: They wind up with logic and common sense, we wind up with a politically correct nightmare.
Only in a parallel universe, at this point.
Sounds good. May it catch on everywhere.
Don't worry... it won't be long until we start thinking "I need to move to Russia for more religious freedom." [/cynic]
Correct, although the First Amendment was very simply worded to be powerful, and difficult to get around, it has been bastardized by the left.
The First Amendment was adopted to protect POLITICAL speech absolutely, the citizen could criticize the state with NO prior restraint, ever. It was not intended to protect public pornography or untruthful slander of private citizens, or to immunize those acts from consequences.
Instead we have criminalized political speech as "hate speech" and immunized and glorified (only) leftist slanderers and perverts.
For better or worse, the Russians never had a real 1A to make that mistake with.
I thought it was Florida and I was shocked!!! Should have known better.:(
No such luck. :(
True. Very true.
It is still ironic, though, that the superior system led to folly, while the inferior one is holding things up robustly in this area.
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