Vitaly Milonov, author of the notorious anti-gay bill in Russia, is decidedly not a fan of British actor Stephen Fry:
[Vitaly] Milonov remains defiant in the face of the furore and makes no secret of his views about Fry who has called for Russia to be stripped of its right to host the Games and led an increasingly visible Internet campaign.
“For me Stephen Fry is a bringer of evil, as he expresses ideas which are evil,” Milonov told AFP in an interview in Saint Petersburg.
Milonov and Fry became arch enemies after the two men held a face-to-face meeting in Saint Petersburg in March and have traded insults through the media ever since.
Fry is an implacable critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he once memorably said looked like the Dobby the House Elf from the Harry Potter books.
Despite the outcry sparked by the adoption of the law both in Saint Petersburg and nationwide, Milonov sees no harm in what he describes as “preventative” legislation.
“It’s a declaration of our values, our response to the challenges of the present time.”
“Thank God that we have Putin, who defends the basic interests of Russia, for defending its values,” said Milonov, saying that Russia “needs to resist the wave of degradation that has seized the Western world.”
“I do not know why we have to apologise in front of Westerners. The preaching tone that they adopted in this area does not suit us.”
There is a certain audacity present when a person who authors a law that subjects an entire class of people to undue discrimination dares to call another person “evil.” Especially when that person, the one who is trying to eradicate the gays, looks like this:
I don’t know. There’s just something about him. Can you put your finger on it? OH YES, it’s that old adage about, “the stronger a man’s anti-gay sentiment is, the likelier he is to come across as gay, gay, gay, gay, gay.”
[h/t Towleroad]
