A nationwide Christian association has called on authorities to move gay clubs away from residential areas, schools, and cultural, sports and medical facilities.
“Everything that is connected to the propaganda of gay culture must be moved away to limit the impact on ordinary people, because it leads to degradation,” Konstantin Bendas, spokesman for the Russian Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith, told The Moscow Times.
Bendas also serves as an expert adviser to the State Duma on ties with social and religions organizations.
In an open letter published Friday, the association also said authorities had to endorse “strict control” of gay clubs to remove minors, drugs, prostitutes and porn distribution.
In response to the letter, one of the organizers of unauthorized gay parades in Moscow on Friday accused the association of “intolerance.”
“Such logic of apartheid is currently in high demand among officials like [Mayor Yury] Luzhkov,” Nikolai Bayev, a gay rights activist, said by phone.
Luzhkov has repeatedly banned gay parades in the city in recent years. Attempts by gay activists to hold them despite the bans have ended in numerous detentions of the activists by police and beatings by opponents of gay parades.
In its statement Friday, the association also expressed its support for a letter sent to prosecutors by the prefect of the Northern Administrative District, Oleg Mitvol, late last month.
In the letter, Mitvol requested that a local gay club be shut down, following what he said were residents’ complaints about drug abusers and gays having sex in courtyards.
“Such lawlessness must be stopped,” Mitvol said, Interfax reported at the time.
Moscow’s Tverskoi District Court on Monday will open preliminary hearings into a lawsuit filed by two lesbians who were refused the right to marry at a Moscow registry office in May, Interfax reported.
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