Can you imagine ambassador from the US, or an EU country saying this? They’d be fired before you could even blink.
Russian Ambassador to Latvia Viktor Kalyuzhny thanked Cardinal Janis Pujats, head of Latvia’s Roman Catholics, for the latter’s criticism of the recent gay and lesbian parade in Riga, the Baltic Times newspaper reports.
The paper quoted the Russian diplomat as saying that it would be impossible to organize such a parade in Russia, as “it is anti-human.”
He also criticized authorities’ decision to allow the march, which took place on July 23.
GayRussia.ru are hoping to organise a parade in Moscow for next summer, by the way, but they’ve met with a negative reaction from Yuri Luzhkov, the city’s Mayor:
"If I receive such a letter, I will refuse," Luzhkov told the Interfax news agency late Friday, explaining that he "guards the Muscovites’ interests, and the capital’s inhabitants would be categorically set against such an initiative."
There is still a long way to go for gay rights in a country that only legalised homosexuality in 1993, and until 1999 classified it as a form of mental ilness.
Having said that, though, from my own private observations, acceptance of homosexuality does seem to be increasing. In the Siberian city of Irkutsk, for example, a major local nightclub used to hold well attended fortnightly gay nights.
