Moscow bans gay rights parade on Eurovision day

[Prometheus The Supremo]

U.S.S.R U kidding me?

Moscow bans gay rights parade on Eurovision day

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow has banned a gay parade planned to coincide with its hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest because it will "destroy morals" in the capital, a spokesman for the city's mayor said Thursday.


Gay rights activists have staged small unsanctioned parades in Moscow without government approval over the past few years. But they have faced arrests and severe beatings by anti-gay and neo-fascist groups.

"The Moscow government is saying: Moscow has never had gay parades and it never will," said Mayor Yuri Luzhkov's spokesman, Sergei Tsoi. "Not only do they destroy morals within our society, but they consciously provoke disorder which threatens the lives of Muscovites and visitors."

Parade organizer and prominent gay rights activist Nikolai Alekseyev said on his website gayrussia.ru that the event would take place anyway.

"This is our right and it is guaranteed by the constitution. No official, including the Moscow mayor, has the right to violate it," Alekseyev said.

But Luzhkov's spokesman said any attempt to hold an unsanctioned gay parade would be "toughly stopped by law enforcement agencies in accordance with the law."

Luzhkov, who has been mayor of Moscow since 1992, once said gay parades were "a satanic act"

Russia did not decriminalize gay sex until 1993, two years after the Soviet Union's collapse, and intolerance is widespread.

Moscow has no gay-friendly district and the homosexual scene is still largely underground. Public displays of affection between same-sex couples are rare.

The gay parade, scheduled for May 16, was meant to coincide with Moscow's hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest. Activists had asked that competitors back homosexual rights on stage.

A Swiss-based Eurovision spokesman, currently in Moscow, declined to comment on the banning of the parade but said: "It's not a secret that we have a large gay audience and we respect everyone's backgrounds."

(Reporting by Aydar Buribayev and Amie Ferris-Rotman, editing by Mark Trevelyan)

source

 

[digi]

Based on that article, Moscow is years ahead of Bermuda in human rights.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

Based on that article, Moscow is years ahead of Bermuda in human rights.

how do they treat gays in bermuda?

 

[digi]

Like crap.
Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1996, amid huge protests against it.
Attempts to include sexual orientation in the human rights code have been stopped many times.
Church protests stopped a gay cruise from stopping in Bermuda....I guess those store owners didn't really need the business.
Discrimination against gays continues unchecked.

 

[Roy G Biv]

People from Bermuda don't have giant inferiorty complexes that manifest themselves as totally misplaced nationalistic arrogance. Russia is not a first-world country.

 

[Urban Shocker]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_kSTtjplkM

 

[digi]

Russia is not a first-world country.

neither is Bermuda.

People from Bermuda don't have giant inferiorty complexes that manifest themselves as totally misplaced nationalistic arrogance.

I guess you've never met one.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

Like crap.
Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1996, amid huge protests against it.
Attempts to include sexual orientation in the human rights code have been stopped many times.
Church protests stopped a gay cruise from stopping in Bermuda....I guess those store owners didn't really need the business.
Discrimination against gays continues unchecked.

you'd think they'd have queerer things to worry about in bermuda such as disappearing ships, planes, involuntary time travel, etc..

i don't know what all the commotion is about. the only gays you have to worry about are straight men in prison who think your ass will do just fine for the time being. all this talk about "destroying morals", "satanic acts", etc. is just plain nuts. politicians who align themselves with anti-gay agendas have absolutely nothing better to do than manufacture fear and vilify a demographic that is no more threatening than whatever.

but hey, why actually do some work in office when you can defend the people from a non existent threat?

"unemployment? pfff, the gays are trying to make your grandpa have sex with satan!" - said the politician who could be doing better things with his/her time.

 

[nfitz]

So are Bermudans bigoted in other ways, or just this one?

 

[digi]

I don't know any Bermudans, but Bermudians are pretty bigoted.

 

[nfitz]

I don't know any Bermudans, but Bermudians ...

Hey, if you want to get into spelling flames, the latest edition of the Canadian Oxford lists both Bermudan and Bermudian ... with Bermudan being listed first. So not only is Bermudan acceptable in Canada, it is the preferred Canadian spelling.

 

[digi]

So not only is Bermudan acceptable in Canada, it is the preferred Canadian spelling.

That's got to be one of the stupidest things I've heard.
The "Canadian Oxford" dictionary is wrong....do you know where Oxford is?
Would you accept Canadan just because some dictionary writer got it wrong?

 

[Brandon716]

Why is Moscow still so anti-gay after all these years? That's the question I'd ask someone who is an expert on Moscow gay history.

 

[Roy G Biv]

 

[Brian69]

Most definitely behind the times over there, though they're certainly not alone. If it were just a matter of the world playing catch-up on this issue I wouldn't feel uneasy. But the way things are going I'm beginning to wonder whether we'll have more personal rights and freedoms in 30 years or less of them.