'Gay rights? That's Europe's problem'

Irsquove told my husband I am leaving him and Irsquove told my parents that Irsquove met someone I am truly in love with and am leaving my marriagerdquo says Anna The rest of the group sitting on plastic chairs arranged in a circle listen attentively ldquoI just donrsquot know how to tell them yet that the other person is a womanrdquo Gay rights activists share a kiss during an unsanctioned protest rally to defend the rights of Russian gays and lesbians in St Petersburg pic courtesy Alexander Demianchuk Reuters The Interview People Once a week on a Monday evening the group gathers in a conference room near the Moscow railway station in St Petersburg Gay people come to tell their stories and to get advice on how to break the news of their sexuality to their parents In Russia where there is little sex education at school and widespread homophobia breaking the news to family and friends can be difficult and on hand to advise are a number of gay young people and their mothers who have gone through the process themselves and want to help others But a controversial new law inu00a0St Petersburg now makes life even harder for the organisers of the support group as well as for anyone who wants to take the issue of gay rights seriously From this week local law makes it illegal for anyone to disseminate ldquohomosexual propagandardquo among minors or to suggest that homosexual relations are a normal form of human interaction on par with heterosexual relations The bill passed by the local parliament last month and now signed into law provides for fines of up to pounds sterling100 for individuals and pounds sterling10000 for organisations that violate it This week it was announced that Russiarsquos federal parliament will consider adopting the law nationally ldquoThe way the law is formulated is extremely vague so nobody can say exactly what would be punished by itrdquo says Igor Kochetkov a leading gay rights activist in the city ldquoBut it means all our work on education and informing people could now be seen as illegalrdquo Any teacher who reassures children that there is nothing abnormal about homosexual feelings any doctor who gives sexual health advice to gay young people or anyone such as those in the support group who disseminates literature about coming out can be held to have flouted the law Even counselling anguished and suicidal gay teenagers could theoretically be illegal The initiator of the law is Vitaly Milonov a local MP from Vladimir Putinrsquos United Russia party He has criticised gay rights as being a European imposition on Russia ldquoWe know that the gay community is a very powerful lobbying structurerdquo said Mr Milonov in an interview with The St Petersburg Times this week ldquoThey have their office in Brussels they are welcome at the United Nations the European Council and so on but this is Europersquos problem why should we copy European laws Not everything they have in Europe is acceptable for Russiardquo His law also appears to equate homosexuality with paedophilia as it also bans ldquopropagandardquo for the latteru00a0ldquoIrsquove seen photographs where men with all sorts of dildos are running around seminakedrdquo said Mr Milonov referring to gay pride events which have always been banned in Russian cities ldquoItrsquos natural that Irsquod try to take my children aside so that they would not see this perversionrdquo Mr Milonov has also promised to ldquomonitor the moral contentrdquo of a concert by the pop singer Madonna in St Petersburg in August Madonna has said she will speak out against the law and could end up being fined if she is found to be ldquopropagandisingrdquo homosexuality from the stage Gay rights have never received much recognition in Russia where homosexuality was only decriminalised in 1993 The former Mayor of Moscow once referred to gay people as ldquoSatanistsrdquo and activists who have tried to organise gay pride marches in Moscow have been attacked by skinheads and arrested by riot police But the new law takes things further Already in force in two provincial Russian regions its adoption in Russiarsquos most European and Westernised city has come as a shock to many ldquoWe have always been the most cultured progressive and civilised city in Russia and now wersquore a jokerdquo says Konstantin Rotikov a historian who has written a history of gay u00a0St Petersburg Mr Rotikov says that apart from wellknown gay residents of St Petersburg such as the composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky a number of wellknown noble figures and top Tsarist officials may well have led secret homosexual lives while being married for the sake of appearances There are even rumours that Peter the Great the founder of St Petersburg may have had more than a Platonic friendship with his longterm companion Alexander Menshikov After the October revolution of 1917 homosexual activity was briefly made legal before Josef Stalin had it banned again in the 1930s ldquoFunnily enough the insinuation then was the same as it is nowrdquo says Mr Rotikov ldquoThen they said that gays were agents of the West who were trying to destroy the Soviet Union now they say that gay activists are being supported by Western money and trying to destroy Russiardquo Two of the mothers who set up the support group one of whom only found out that her 40yearold son was gay two years ago spoke at the parliamentary hearings devoted to discussion of the law They were whistled booed at and abused ldquoPeople told us that our children were sick and needed to be treatedrdquo says 65 yearold Elena Musolina ldquoThey told us we were victims of Satan or agents of foreign countriesrdquo Surveys show that around 80 per cent of local residents support the new law which also has the backing of the Orthodox Church and there is no doubt that Russian society is deeply socially conservative As more young gay people tell their stories at the group including a nervous 17 yearold who says his father has accepted that he is gay but refuses to allow him to be seen outside with his boyfriend discussion turns to the law Everyone agrees that the main problem is a lack of knowledge ldquoHaving literature to read can really help and talking to others makes you realise that what you are going through is not uniquerdquo says Ms Musolina ldquoI knew nothing about gay people as Irsquod never really met anyone openly gayrdquo says Anna Belodedova 55 whose 30yearold son is gay ldquoItrsquos pretty much the same for everyone here We all thought they were perverts and had heard things about Aids and disgusting nightclubs and other awful things on the television and in the newspapersrdquo It was only when she came to the support groups and saw a whole room of ordinarylooking people with ordinary stories to tell that she realised it was not like that ldquoThe more that people know about gays and gay life the more they will understand it But instead we now have this law that is doing the exact opposite and making it even harder for people to discuss the issues openlyrdquo