No gay parades in Moscow, mayor vows

MOSCOW - Moscow's mayor has vowed never to allow a gay-rights parade, calling such events "satanic," but activists said they would defy a city ban.

Yury Luzhkov and city authorities barred activists from staging a parade last year, citing the threat of violence. Activists ignored the ban, and were attacked by right-wing protesters and detained by police.

Speaking yesterday at a Kremlin event attended by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Luzhkov again lambasted gay and lesbian groups.

"Last year, Moscow came under unprecedented pressure to sanction the gay parade, which can be described in no other way than as satanic," he said to applause in comments broadcast on a city-controlled TV channel. "We did not let the parade take place then, and we are not going to allow it in the future."

He also charged that Western countries were facing a crisis of religious faith and were corrupting children. "Some European nations bless single-sex marriages and introduce sexual guides in schools. Such things are a deadly moral poison for children," RIA-Novosti quoted Luzhkov as saying.

Meanwhile, Russian gay activists said they were challenging the city's ban of their parade in an appeal to the European Court for Human Rights, and pledged to hold a similar march in late May.

"Trying to silence us, the Russian authorities denied us one of the fundamental human rights. The European justice will have the last say in this case," activist and parade organizer Nikolai Alexeyev said in a statement posted on the Web site www.gayrussia.ru.

The issue of holding a gay parade last year split Moscow's gay community, many of whom say Russian society is still too conservative and a parade would only provoke more violence from radical groups.

Luzhkov's remarks drew criticism from London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who said he strongly opposed a ban. "It is the right of gays and lesbians to demonstrate peacefully and this should be upheld by Moscow," Livingstone said.

He said last year's decision not to allow a parade "led to scenes of fascists parading in Moscow and assaulting gay and lesbian people."

The Russian Orthodox Church expressed support for the ban. The head of its external relations department, Father Vsevolod Chaplin, described Luzhkov as "a responsible politician who heeds the opinion of his people," the Interfax news agency reported.

"I believe that in the 21st century people will realize the malignancy of perversions opposing the family in its natural form as bestowed by God," Interfax quoted Chaplin as saying. *