An anti-gay Russian lawmaker wants his country to ban Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, from entering Russia, claiming he could bring with him infectious diseases.
Russia’s LGBT citizens know of Vitaly Milonov all too well. An outspoken, radically religious lawmaker and member of the nation’s majority ruling party, he was the sponsor of Vladimir Putin’s anti-gay laws that ban any public discussion or “promotion” of homosexuality. In fact, he authored a local law on which the national law was based.
This morning, barely hours after news broke in the U.S. that Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly announced he is gay, several conservative lawmakers around the world saw an opportunity and jumped on it to register their homophobia.
U.S. Republican Senator Ted Cruz was among them, but so was Vitaly Milonov.
Milonov told a local Russian news site that Cook should be banned from Russia.
Claiming gay people in America all have “unseemly ties,” Milanov asked, “What could he bring us? The Ebola virus, AIDS, gonorrhea?”
An unedited Google translation of Milanov’s comments reads:
“Thus it improves sales. Apple has become a popular brand. He is an artist who is first unwound as an artist, and then declares that he is homosexual. Now everyone knows that Apple does buggers, and each begins to change minds – well, he’s talented … It’s a shrewd political move, “- says V.Milonov.
Buzzfeed’s Max Seddon today reports Milonov “is an iPhone and iPad owner but recently declared that an iPhone 6 his ‘European homophobe friends’ gave him was too vulnerable to U.S. spying for Russian officials to use.”
Elena Mizulina, the author of the federal ban, said in July that iPhones were a key tool for pedophiles to film child pornography, but has herself been photographed using an iPad. Kremlin propaganda chief Dmitry Kiselyov, who once called for burning the hearts of gay people who die in car crashes “as unfit for life,â€Â has a pink iPhone.
Last fall, claiming reports of anti-gay violence in Russia were “fake,” Milonov said that gay people “rape kids,† and insisted there is no violence against gays, but “much more violence†by gay people against straight people.
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Image via Wikimedia
Hat tip: Buzzfeed
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