Russian gay activists said Wednesday
they were disappointed with U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton
for not raising the issue of anti-gay sentiment during a two-day trip
to Russia.
Gay activists hoped Clinton would use
the unveiling of a statue of gay icon Walt Whitman on the grounds of
the Moscow State University to decry homophobia in the former Soviet
Union. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov also attended the event. Luzhkov
has called Gay Pride marches a “satanic gathering,” banning them
since 2006.
“Russia is supposed to be a democracy
and she said nothing,” gay activist Nikolai Alexeyev told The
Associated Press.
At a Tuesday news conference, Alexeyev
had urged Clinton to address the issue.
“Hillary Clinton will have a good
chance to publicly express her position on gay rights to one of the
top homophobic politicians in Europe,” he said, gay Russian website
gayrussia.ru
reported.
“I think that no one would understand
her silence on the breach of fundamental rights of LGBT [lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender] people in Russia, the day she
inaugurates the monument to a gay poet together with the homophobic
mayor of Moscow,” he added.
Being gay is not illegal in Russia, but
the Russian Orthodox Church has strongly condemned gay rights groups
and anti-gay sentiment is widespread.
Gay rights activists say authorities
have shut down over 175 gay-related events, including a gay and
lesbian film festival last year in St. Petersburg. Officials
declared the nightclubs where the films were to be screened fire
hazards.
Luzhkov has linked such gay events to
the spread of HIV: “We have banned, and will ban, the propaganda of
sexual minorities' opinions because they can be one of the factors in
the spread of HIV infection,” the mayor said at a December 4, 2008
conference in Moscow titled HIV/AIDS in Developed Countries.
The Whitman statue was placed in the
gardens of the university, where in May police – at the direction
of Luzhkov – arrested more than 30 gay activists for attempting to
hold a banned Gay Pride march. Among the arrested was Chicago-based
activist Andy Thayer, who heads the gay rights group Gay
Liberation Network.