Back in the U.S.S.R.
In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, homosexuals were jailed for five years. Homosexuality was classified as a “mental disorder” — which is what our Catholic Catechism calls it, a “disorder.”
The decriminalization of homosexuality occurred in 1993, after the fall of the Soviet Union. Now, homosexuals have come out of the closet — and not surprisingly — they want to hold their first “Gay Pride” parade or march in Moscow. According to the British newspaper Independent (Feb. 17), the “Chief Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin warned that Russia’s Muslims would stage violent protests if the march went ahead. ‘If they come out on to the streets anyway, they should be flogged. Any normal person would do that — Muslims and Orthodox Christians alike.'” Indeed, the Russian Orthodox Church joined in by saying the parade would be “propaganda for sin.”
Russia’s Chief Rabbi Berl Lazar has come out against the parade by saying, according to LifeSiteNews.com (Feb. 17), that “any organization that forwards ‘sexual perversions’ does not have a right to exist.” The Mayor of Moscow, Sergei Tsoi, said that Moscow “will not allow the conduct of a gay parade in any form — neither open, nor indirect, and all attempts to organize non-sanctioned action will be severely repressed.”
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