While the West has generally been moving towards greater acceptance of LGBT people both socially and legally, the same can’t be said of Russia. The country has become increasingly homophobic – just in the last few weeks Vladimir Putin has signed laws banning the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality and preventing foreign gay couple adopting children.
Everyone from the European Court Of Human Rights to Tilda Swinton has voiced concern over the direction Russia is taking, and now British band Autoheart have added their voice with a song called Moscow, which has a music video featuring Russian male soldiers kissing in front of the Kremlin.
They also released a statement saying, ‘We are lucky in Britain to have laws that mean whether we are gay, straight, bisexual or anything in between, our relationships are recognised and our rights protected by law. But in Russia there is an anti-gay crisis happening right now: their government does not want to afford their people those same rights and are trying to criminalise even the discussion of gay equality.
‘Something similar happened in Britain not long ago: Section 28, brought in by Thatcher’s Tory party in the Eighties to stop teachers from talking about same-sex relationships in a positive way, was only repealed in 2003.
‘These laws only serve to protect intolerance, ignorance, homophobia and hate crimes.
‘In our video, two gay Russian soldiers kiss in front of the Kremlin — yet just last month same a group of same-sex couples in Moscow were violently attacked and then arrested for doing just this.’
Take a look at the video above.
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