Moscow:
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday mocked a rainbow LGBT pleasure flag hung from the US embassy in Moscow, suggesting it mirrored on the orientation of the diplomats.
Throughout a televised video convention, a lawmaker instructed Putin that the US embassy had hung a rainbow flag on its facade for the primary time to have fun Satisfaction month in June.
“Who works on this constructing?” Putin requested the speaker, Senator Alexei Pushkov, to be instructed “Individuals.”
“Allow them to have fun. They’ve proven a sure one thing concerning the individuals who work there,” he added with a smile.
Putin on Friday signed amendments to the structure backed by a nationwide vote that embody a clause on marriage being between a person and a girl, geared toward stopping legalisation of homosexual unions.
The president mentioned Friday nonetheless that Russia doesn’t discriminate in opposition to individuals on the premise of sexual orientation.
He mentioned a legislation banning promotion of gay relationships to minors, which he signed in 2013 to a storm of worldwide condemnation aimed merely to stop the “foisting” of such relationships on kids.
The legislation has been used as a pretext to ban homosexual pleasure occasions.
“Let an individual develop up, change into an grownup and determine his personal path himself. You simply should not impose something,” Putin insisted.
He mentioned that “those that assault us on this foundation are simply making an attempt to interrupt down an open door.”
A conservative politician who heads the Union of Girls of Russia warned Putin that billboards have been utilizing rainbow imagery to promote ice-cream.
“It is oblique however all the identical it forces our kids to get used to the colors, to the flag that everybody is hanging up, even on that embassy,” mentioned Yekaterina Lakhova.
US Ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan in a video on Twitter on June 25 mentioned “our embassy is displaying the rainbow flag in solidarity,” wishing Russians a “joyful Satisfaction.”
On June 27, he and ambassadors from 4 different nations together with Britain launched an announcement urging the Russian authorities to hold out its obligations to guard the rights of LGBT individuals.
The British embassy in Moscow additionally flew a rainbow flag.
The flag on the US embassy, an imposing constructing on a serious street, turned a goal for homophobic protests.
Members of Sorok Sorokov, a conservative Orthodox Christian group, videoed themselves trampling on a rainbow flag on the pavement in entrance of the constructing.
An Orthodox Church spokesman slammed the flag as disrespectful of Russians’ values.
Many nonetheless snapped selfies in entrance of the flag to sign their help for homosexual rights. “The pleasure flag on the US embassy has change into a landmark,” wrote leisure web site Afisha.ru.
Russia decriminalised homosexuality in 1993.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
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