Russian lawmakers target gay ‘propaganda’

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.

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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, the 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 unfurled a sign on a crowded street corner that said, “No to crimes against gays and lesbians.”

“State homophobia always existed,” he said. “Now it is becoming open.”

Two other provinces in recent months banned spreading “propaganda” about homosexuality to minors, but St. Petersburg’s law has had the biggest impact, because the city is the second largest in the country and has long been regarded as the most tolerant. In the past, St. Petersburg has allowed gay pride parades, unlike Moscow.

The man responsible for St. Petersburg’s anti-gay law, local legislator Vitaly Milonov, a member of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, said he was taking a stand for his Orthodox Christian faith — at a time when even conservative European politicians such as British Prime Minister David Cameron are pushing to legalize same-sex marriage.

“We cannot change the Bible just because it’s fashionable in Europe,” Milonov said in his St. Petersburg office, a series of rooms stuffed with gold-leaf Orthodox icons that is housed in a palace built by Czar Nicholas I. “Now is the time when Russia wants to show everybody else where its moral values are.” The Russian Orthodox Church has expressed support for the new law and called for a similar measure to be adopted on a national level.

Attacks on the West

During Russia’s presidential campaign, which ended with Putin’s victory March 4, anti-American rhetoric rocketed to heights reminiscent of the Cold War, with attacks on the new U.S. ambassador, Michael A. McFaul, suggesting that he was promoting revolution in the country. Putin said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton signaled that opposition activists should take to the streets in Moscow and St. Petersburg.