In Moscow, Gay = Satanic

by Michael Jones · 2010-01-26 07:28:00 UTC
Topics:

Mayor LuzhkovMoscow has never been a beacon of LGBT acceptance. The city's current mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, has made it a high priority for his administration to trot out homophobia several times a year. He's called same-sex love inadmissible, has used his police forces to suppress gay rights demonstrations and wallop activists with clubs and chemicals, and now he's calling gay pride Satanic.

And if you think that's bad, wait 'til you get to the part where Luzhkov believes that LGBT people don't deserve human rights.

Mayor Luzhkov was responding to the fact that gay rights activists in Moscow, who annually face a Sisyphean task of trying to organize a pride celebration, announced that they would move forward with plans to demonstrate for gay rights in May 2010. That got the Mayor's britches in a bind, to say the least.

"A gay parade ... cannot be called anything but a Satanic act," Luzkhov told an education conference. "It's high time that we stop propagating nonsense discussions about human rights, and bring to bear on [gays] the full force and justice of the law."

Full force is something Mayor Luzkhov is used to. Like the time his police forces arrested scores of gay rights demonstrators during a recording of a popular international music competition. Or the time that his cronies beat up UK gay rights activist Peter Tatchell, who traveled to Moscow to support gay rights activists.

Still, despite having a mayor with as much class as a Tasmanian Devil in a china shop, gay rights activists in Moscow are undeterred. The head of Moscow Pride, Nikolai Alekseev, said that Luzkhov has said all of this before, and that while his homophobia runs rampant, it's not strong enough to quiet advocates for equal rights.

"There was nothing in Luzhkov's speech that we haven't heard before," Alekseev said. "All the same medieval and homophobic rhetoric, under the obscurantist sauce."

Ouch. Ya' burnt, Mayor Luzhkov. But seriously, talk about a group living out that Gandhi quote, "In a gentle way, you can shake the world." Through annual perseverence, gay rights groups in Moscow have not only brought out Mayor Luzhkov's true colors, they've gained the confidence of the world to work for the transformation of Russia, even if it happens in baby steps.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Why Bill Gates Should Have Condemned Uganda's "Kill the Gays" Bill
NEXT STORY:
Bullied high schooler convinces MPAA to change ‘Bully’ rating to “PG-13”

COMMENTS (2)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.