It has been reported that a 39-year-old airport senior airport administrator was savagely stabbed and trampled to death before his body was stuffed in a box, placed in his car and set on fire. While the victim’s name is being withheld, three suspects – whose names are also being withheld at this time – have been detained and, according to Reuters, will be charged with hate crimes.
Last month, a 23-year-old man was also tortured to death after he fatefully revealed to his drinking buddies that he, himself is gay.
While not quite a wave, Nikolai Alexeyev, Russia’s most prominent gay rights activist, said on Twitter, “Now the deputy director of an airport has been killed in Kamchatka. Because he was gay. And it’s going to get worse.”
What Alexeyev is referring to is a series of legal maneuvers that are being instituted in courthouses small and large throughout the Russian state against gay ‘propaganda.’ These measures include a ban on Pride parades, the distribution of leaflets to organize events. Even handholding by members of the same sex can give the authorities pause to detain people.
President Vladimir Putin has made it clear since his return to power in May that he will not tolerate what he sees as any aberrance that insults the church, an institution whose power and reach have only grown since his tenure resumed.
Putin has observed, with his trademark lack of irony, that Russia does not discriminate against gay people but has criticized them for failing to increase the population. He has also made in clear in recent statements that he will prevent all foreign (or national) couples from adopting if those couples are the same gender.
Homosexuality has been legal since the breakup of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 but by large minorities, Russians still hold deeply negative opinions about gay people. 38 percent believe homosexuality needs some sort of curative treatment.
And as the recent spate of murders attest to, some are taking it upon themselves to find the ultimate cure.
Although I regret the violent deaths that these gay men have suffered, I do agree with Russia’s anti-gay-propaganda laws. I think the gay agenda in the United States has become unbearable, and I have known many gays and lesbians who were savage in the face of those who denounce gays. The church keeps society in harmony much better than gays, so my vote is for that. And guess what? I myself have had homosexual leanings. Congrats to Russia for being so strong-willed!