Putin backs gay-baiting Moscow mayor’s reappointment
Yuri Luzhkov, Moscow’s gay-hating, bee-keeping mayor, looks set for another 4 years in office after receiving the official backing of President Putin.
The City Duma holds a special meeting tomorrow to approve his nomination.
The 71-year-old Mayor is well-known to Western activists for his trenchant opposition to gay rights.
He banned the 2006 and 2007 gay Pride marches, and has vowed never to let gay people march in his city, calling Pride organisers “Satanic.”
Mr Luzhkov says he will not allow a gay pride parade “in any form” and that any attempt to march in the streets will be “resolutely quashed.”
The quashing of resistance applies not just to gay people but to other who protest against the President.
Mr Luzhkov’s wife, Yelena Baturina, has risen to become Russia’s richest woman by redeveloping the capital’s best real-estate spots.