Vladimir Putin looks a CBS News journalist in the eyes and lies to him and the American people about how Russia’s LGBT people are treated under his laws.
In a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday evening, Russian president Vladimir Putin insisted that LGBT people in Russia are fully equal, live normal lives, and face no discrimination or persecution, despite the anti-gay laws and the well-documented climate of hate his anti-gay laws have helped to foster against them.
“We have no persecution at all,” Putin tells CBS News’ Charlie Rose. “People of non-traditional sexual orientation work, they live in peace, they get promoted, they get state awards for their achievements in science and arts or other areas. I personally have awarded them medals.”
“The problem of sexual minorities in Russia had been deliberately exaggerated from the outside for political reasons, I believe, without any good basis,” the Russian president and former KGB officer insists.
Putin stands firmly behind his broadly written laws which purport only to ban what is loosely defined as pro-LGBT “propaganda” directed at children, but which easily could include a Russian citizen “liking” on social media a photo of two men holding hands, or even having a photo of one’s same-sex partner on their desk at work.
LOOK: Putin: Russia Should ‘Clean’ Itself Of Gay People Because They Don’t Reproduce
“I don’t see anything un-democratic in this legal act,” Putin says in the video above. “I believe we should leave kids in peace. We should give them a chance to grow, help them to realize who they are and decide for themselves. Do they consider themselves a man or a woman? A female? A male? Do they want to live in a normal, natural marriage or a non-traditional one? That’s the only thing I wanted to talk about. I don’t see here any infringement on the rights of gay people.”
Of course, Putin’s 2013 anti-gay laws effectively made it illegal to even tell children LGBT people exist, so how could they be expected to “realize who they are and decide for themselves,” especially when their head of state calls different-sex relationships “normal, natural marriage,” but same-sex relationships “non-traditional sexual relationships”?
Sadly, at least in the clip CBS News published, Charlie Rose does little to push back on Putin’s lies, and does not confront him with facts, even the ones in the accompanying CBS News article.
“A 2014 Human Rights Watch report documented an uptick in anti-gay violence and harassment in Russia since the laws were passed,” CBS notes.
NCRM has documented examples of violent rape and attacks of LGBT people that go un-investigated and unpunished, and other news sites have documented stories of LGBT people in Putin’s Russia being tortured, killed, raped, sexually assaulted, whipped, imprisoned, arrested, punched, violently beaten, and stabbed to death.
Â
Related:
Think You Know What’s Going On In Russia? 20 Shocking Reports Show Anti-Gay Hate Exploding
Russian Group ‘Occupy-Pedofilyay’ Tapes Themselves ‘Curing’ Gay 15-Year-Old
You’ll Have No Idea How Much Some Russians Hate Gays Until You Watch This
Watch: Jon Stewart Interviews Man Who Made HBO’s ‘Hunted: The War Against Gays In Russia’
Â