Facebook's recently-launched
relationships status icons identifying gay and lesbian users who are
married have prompted a backlash against the social networking site
in Russia.
Facebook added the new married icons to
Timeline, Facebook's alternative profile which allows users to
highlight photos, posts and life events chronologically.
One icon includes two brides, the other
two grooms.
According to RT,
previously known as Russia Today, religious activists have
issued an ultimatum that Facebook stop “flirting with sodomites”
and remove all content promoting homosexuality.
A demand that Facebook comply within 24
hours was ignored, spurring the activists to launch a petition
calling on the government to re-criminalize gay sex.
Vladimir Roslyakovsky, the leader of
the Orthodox community in the city of Saratov, said the petition had
attracted more than 34,000 electronic signatures in just 3 days.
“We demand only one thing: Facebook
should be blocked in the entire country because it openly popularizes
homosexuality among minors,” Roslyakovsky is quoted as saying.
Roslyakovsky accused the United States
of trying to turn Russia “into likeness of Sodom and Gomorrah.”
“But I am confident that Russian laws
and reasonable citizens will be able to protect their children from a
fierce attack of sodomites,” he added.
Earlier this year, several Russian
municipalities approved laws barring “homosexual propaganda to
minors.”
(Related: Madonna
threatened with fine if she violates St. Petersburg anti-gay law.)