When asked to comment on Apple CEO Tim
Cook's coming out, a Russian lawmaker known for his opposition to gay
rights stated that Cook should steer clear of Russia.
After several years leading Apple, Cook
announced this week what many people already suspected, that he's
gay. The acknowledgment makes Cook the first openly gay CEO of a
Fortune 500 company.
(Related: Bill
Clinton, Suze Orman, Mark Zuckerberg praise Tim Cook's coming out.)
St. Petersburg city council member
Vitaly Milonov told the FlashNord website that Cook should be banned
for life from entering Russia.
“What could he bring us? The Ebola
virus, AIDS, gonorrhea? They all have unseemly ties over there,”
Milonov
said. “Ban him for life.”
Russia's law prohibiting the promotion
of “gay propaganda” to minors was based on a local ordinance
championed by Milonov. Milonov's anti-gay rhetoric includes
comparing
gay people to monkeys, saying that most
gay people are “lying about their problems,” and insisting
that gay
parenting destroys children psychologically.