MOSCOW – Almost half of Russians believe homosexuality is a human behavior acquired under the influence of the media, according to a poll taken by the state-owned polling agency VTsIOM earlier this month reports Rianovosti.
“Forty-seven percent of the respondents said media and propaganda were the key factors contributing to development of a person’s non-traditional sexual orientation,” the agency said in a press release issued last week.
Among other vital factors that impact the development of homosexuality, respondents named the influence of friends and parents (35 and 33 percent, respectively). Only 16 percent said that negative experience of past relationships with people of the opposite sex brings about homosexuality.
Same-sex relations were only decriminalized in Russia in 1993, and anti-gay sentiment remains strong among Russians, including the political establishment. In 2007, former Moscow mayor, Yury Luzhkov described attempts to hold a gay parade in the capital as “satanic.” No gay parade has ever been officially sanctioned in Russia.
According to the VTsIOM, the public perception of gays and lesbians in Russia is worse than that of people of other ethnicity, faith or social status. The poll found that 45 percent of those questioned feel negative about the need to communicate with homosexuals.
