The Advocate has announced their thirteen most homophobic people in the world for 2013, and Vladimir Putin is at the top of the list:
To hold the the president of Russia responsible for every antigay incident within his country’s borders might be unfair. But it’s far less offensive than what’s happening to LGBT Russians.
A neo-Nazi group is posting video of gay men it captures and then tortures by humiliating and oftenviolent means. Someone threw poison gas into a gay nightclub in Moscow in November, and that was the second time it had been attacked in a week. The first time men showed up with guns and shot at the front door indiscriminately.
Meanwhile, Putin is touting his Olympic Games in Sochi, suggesting that maybe the series of antigay laws he signed won’t be enforced. In 2013, Putin signed a law banning any foreigner from adopting a Russian child if they come from a country supportive of marriage equality. Now the standard is so strict that Russia’s Children Rights Commissioner says only Italy is narrow-minded enough to meet the qualifications. And Putin famously signed the so-called gay propaganda ban this year. It’s a law so vague that Olympians could be fined or jailed for kissing their partners. Putin told the International Olympic Committee that he will do “everything” to ensure guests are “comfortable” in Sochi. But he’s also banned protests of any kind there while the games go on. And photos of those daring to protest the law already show vicious beatings as a result. This is the sort of thing that Pride parades were invented to combat. But we’re now one year into a 100-year ban on those in Moscow thanks to a law passed in 2012. Capping off the year, just this week Putin gave a speech in which he said Russia was right to reject “so-called tolerance, being genderless and fruitless.”
Other honorees this year include:
Virginia’s GOP gubernatorial ticket (Ken Cuccinelli and E.W. Jackson)
Robert Mugabe, dictator of Zimbabwe
Pacific Justice Institute
Frigide Barjot, anti-gay French activist
Cardinal Dolan
Pat Robertson
Orson Scott Card
Bryan Fischer
Scott Lively
Rep. Louie Gohmert
Justice Antonin Scalia
Sen. Marco Rubio
Click here to read about the horrific, backwards activities of all thirteen!
Sorry you didn’t make the cut, Porno Pete and Linda Harvey. Neither of you is famous enough or successful enough in your career.
