Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered new assurances to gay athletes and fans attending the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics next month. Yet he defended Russia's anti-gay law by equating gays with pedophiles and said Russia needs to "cleanse" itself of homosexuality if it wants to increase its birth rate.
Putin's comments in an interview broadcast Sunday with Russian and foreign television stations showed the wide gulf between the perception of homosexuality in Russia versus the West.
A Russian law passed last year banning "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations" among minors has caused an international outcry.
Putin refused to answer a question from the BBC on whether he believes that people are born gay or become gay. The Russian law, however, suggests that information about homosexuality can influence a child's sexual orientation.
The law has contributed to growing animosity toward gays in Russian society, with rights activists reporting a rise in harassment and abuse.
International worries about how gays will be treated in Sochi have been met with assurances from Russian officials and Olympics organizers that there will be no discrimination in Sochi, and Putin reiterated that stance.
"There are no fears for people with this nontraditional orientation who plan to come to Sochi as guests or participants," Putin declared in the TV interview.
He said the law was aimed at banning propaganda of homosexuality and pedophilia, suggesting that gays are more likely to abuse children.
Making another favorite argument against homosexuality, Putin noted with pride that Russia saw more births than deaths last year for the first time in two decades. Population growth is vital for Russia's development and "anything that gets in the way of that we should clean up," he said, using a word usually reserved for military operations.
Putin accused the United States of double standards in its criticism of Russia, pointing to laws that remain on the books in some U.S. states classifying gay sex as a crime. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, ruled in 2003 that such laws were unconstitutional.
Homosexuality was a crime in the entire former Soviet Union, which collapsed in 1991. It was decriminalized in Russia in 1993.
An overwhelming majority of convicted sex offenders (including pedophiles) are male, a majority of the victims are girls. Let's think about that.
Quote:
An estimated 25% of girls and 16% of boys experience sexual abuse before they are 18 years old. Statistics for boys may be falsely low because of reporting techniques.
And those numbers are around 5% of the actual total of children who experience sexual abuse, let's not pretend like all girls report being sexually abused.
He's a modern day Hitler, I honestly think he would kill the gays if he could. I'm not being dramatic. He see's them as a threat to his perfect-little-society fantasy.
Also, let's stop debating if most pedophiles are gay, because it's ****-stirring and there's nothing to back it up.
How can he be so ignorant
And there's no need to increase birth rate in a world where birth rate is really high. Gay Russians are welcome anywhere else anyway
very interesting.
Most pedophiles who even raped boys, identify as straight btw.
But that's besides the point coz for most pedophiles it doesn't matter, boy or girl. It's all about it being a child.
And putin can diaf, they should't allow russia to run the games, like seriously.
The games are supposed to be universal. 70 countries in the world have laws against the gays. If you start banning countries for that, you'll be losing a third of the world's countries at your games (especially summer). That's just not possible. And where do you draw the line : gay rights ? death penalty ? abortion ? human rights ? political rights ? etc.
