Posted on 05/16/2009 8:34:15 AM PDT by Pyro7480
Riot police broke up several gay rights demonstrations in Moscow on Saturday, hauling away scores of protesters hours before the capital hosted a major international pop music competition.
No injuries were reported, but the detentions could damage Russia's reputation on gay rights and its image as a modern nation, as the country tries to play gracious host during an event being televised around the world.
City officials had warned they would not tolerate marches or rallies supporting the rights of gays and lesbians. Activists had targeted Moscow, which was holding the finals of the Eurovision song contest, to press their claims that Russia officially sanctions homophobia.
Police seized gay rights advocates as well as some members of religious and nationalist groups that staged counter-demonstrations....
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has drawn international criticism by describing homosexuality as "satanic" and seeking to justify official discrimination against gay people in Russia by claiming they help spread the AIDS virus. Luzhkov has banned gay pride rallies in recent years, and attempted marches by gay activists have typically ended in detentions and attacks by nationalist groups....
"(Gay pride events) not only destroy moral foundations of our society, but also purposefully provoke disturbances that will threaten the lives and safety of Moscow residents and guests," City Hall spokesman Sergei Tsoi was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying Saturday.
At one rally a short walk from the Kremlin, about 50 demonstrators from nationalist and Orthodox Christian organizations denounced homosexuality. One man was detained when he alleged officials in the Kremlin were gay.
A half-dozen anti-gay rights demonstrators were also seized by police during a demonstration in Moscow's central Pushkin Square....
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
It’s a Slav thing, when the current Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, was mayor of Warsaw, he also banned gay pride parades there.
You mean the Russians don’t celebrate diversity????????
Deep down, I wonder if people like Perez Hilton realize how much freedom they have in this country? Can you imagine him going to some parts of the world and getting in people’s face about same-sex marriage????????
I don’t ever want to hear American gays claim to have no rights again.
Of course they do. But they make their living based on convincing people that it isn't the case.
Nope, they don’t have a clue. As a matter of fact, they employ AND wish the very same tactics used in Russia would be used here, only in reverse. They do not understand that by denying ONE groups rights, they are significantly weakening their own ablility to that right. Conservatives get this, and that is why while we may detest the content of the protest, we will defend anyones right to have one.
Yeah, but the issue with the sodomite-pride parades is they constantly get away with lewd activities, since the authorities are afraid of lawsuits.
Bet they never wrote anything like this about and islamic nation.
Yo Moscow, take our queers too.
Isn’t Russia what our leftists aspire to...bwaaaaaahahaha (I know things are different now then when dear leader Stalin was runnin’ the communist show..)
Oh, they also aspire to be like the Muzzie homocide bombers, in that they share their hatred of bushevil.
No injuries were reported, but the detentions could damage Russia’s reputation on gay rights”
*******
Somehow, I don’t think Pooty-Poot is losing much sleep over Russia’s reputation on gay rights. That may work on Western politicians, not on this guy.
When Russians say they had enough, they had enough. Their level of “tolerance” has been exceeded. Don’t get Russians worked up.
To a Russian jail cell...where they’ll be well treated of course.
Even communists know that “gay rights” is just a means to a “workers’ revolution”. Gays are being used by the one-worlders to further their aim, not human rights.
Agree. However, if these protests were completely homegrown, it would be one thing. But, I doubt that they are.
We gripe about ACORN, but in fact we've been doing precisely the same thing to the governments and peoples of other countries for the last 20 years. The so-called Rose & other "colored" Revolutions in Eastern Europe were incited by ours, not theirs.
It would not surprise me at all if the NDI and IRI while supposedly creating "civil societies" and "democracy-building" in the world, decided to add "gay rights" to the list to incite unrest. We pay for the NDI & IRI through the National Endowment for Democracy, but few Americans even know that they exist, let alone know that these organizations actively act like a combination of the CIA, the US State Department and ACORN to foreign countries, all rolled into one.
Regardless of what anyone thinks about Russia in general, exporting revolutions from here is not what the USA was ever supposed to be about. Because when we let them do it to others, sooner or later they had to figure out that they could do it to us!
Maybe the Russians don’t care about pleasing Western elites. Nothing new there.
Don’t make Russians mad. The Spetsnaz doesn’t take prisoners. They burn down and blow up cities and walk away. And Russian women will throw knives and pots at you.
So these days people have to go to Russia to enjoy their God-given freedom from public perversity?
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