Moscow Government Says Banning Gay Pride Parades Is a Human Right

According to English-language version of Russian newspaper Pravda, the Moscow leadership argues that the International Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms allows it to ban peaceful meetings to “prevent massive riots and to protect health, morality, rights and freedoms of other people”. The newspaper argues that religious people have a right not so see or hear about gay people. From the article:

It is the public propaganda of homosexuality in Russia that evokes so much protest and anger with other people. It is not about the cultural and historical attitude to homosexuality in the country. It is about the acceptability of public propaganda of various sexualities in general. In the long run, are there many of those who seem to care about what kind of love two people practice at home together? But if they try to advertise their sexual preferences for everyone, it shall be considered as a violation of other people’s rights.

This attitude it upsetting, but very common. In Europe, Islamophobes want to ban Muslim clothing, and organised atheists want to ban the public display of any religious symbols—and they all say that religion should be hidden away in the privacy of people’s home. Attitudes to gay people have traditionally been very similar to the Russian, and it’s not uncommon to hear people talk of homosexuality as something private that better not be discussed at all. But this attitude is unacceptable. People have no obligation to hide themselves because bigots are morally upset by religion or same-sex relationships.

Read the article in Pravda here.