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Rights Movement Divides Russia's Gay Community
Police officers in Moscow detain an activist at an attempted gay pride parade in May. Gay rights campaigners said media coverage allowed the whole world to witness the plight of gays in Russia.
(By Sergey Ponomarev -- Associated Press)
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"Gays just don't need this," Mishin said of the march. "Very often people come here and say, 'Listen, if I had the chance, I would punch this Alexeyev in the face.' Honestly, I support that."
Alexeyev counters that Mishin publicly opposes the gay march to curry favor with the authorities and protect his business.
Still, Alexeyev admits that he is disappointed with the tepid support the movement has received in the gay community, attributing it to general political apathy in Russia. "People care about their own personal welfare much more than going to demonstrations and fighting for whatever rights," Alexeyev said.
Outside the gay community, the belief that gays should keep to themselves appears nearly universal. Only 9 percent of respondents disagreed with Luzhkov's ban of the gay pride march last year, according to a survey by the Public Opinion Foundation.
In politics, gay groups have found next to no allies. None of the small parties that advocate Western-style democracy have made an issue of gay rights; some of them argue that Russia has much bigger problems. The only national politician who has publicly come to Alexeyev's aid is an ultranationalist member of parliament, Dmitri Mitrofanov. Many in the gay community criticize the activists for making common cause with a politician who has expressed racist views, but Alexeyev says he has little choice.
"People, don't ask why Mitrofanov acted, but ask why others didn't," said Alexeyev.
Despite the hostility, gay life in Moscow quietly beats on. On July 7, a lesbian couple exchanged the marriage vows of the Russian Orthodox Church. The ceremony, held in a cramped apartment that is home to two couples, was attended by a handful of close friends, but no parents.
Archbishop Alexei Skripnik-Dardaki, who left the church in 2000, officiated. He now leads furtive services in apartments with half a dozen regular worshipers -- constantly fearful, he said, of the authorities knocking on the door.
Skripnik-Dardaki is working with other disenchanted Orthodox priests to create a church that welcomes punks, anarchists and other marginalized groups. But among those reform-minded clerics, the archbishop said, he is the only one who has called for gays to be accepted. To him, doing so has become a spiritual duty.
"God has no people whom He turns away or doesn't accept," Skripnik-Dardaki said. "And gays are the most glaring example of these people who are turned away -- exiled, besmirched, spat-upon, damned."
Groping for an answer to how more rights for gays could be accepted in Russia, Skripnik-Dardaki noted that 20 years ago few people could have imagined the collapse of the Soviet Union. "Russia is a land of extremes, and I understand that what was once unacceptable could become acceptable a few years later," he said. "In the end, I have faith in our people and in our spiritual strength."
