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Chris Christie Appeals Gay Marriage Ruling To Higher Court

By ANGELA DELLI SANTI and GEOFF MULVIHIL

TRENTON, N.J. – Gov. Chris Christie's administration on Monday asked New Jersey's top state court to take an appeal of a judge's ruling that the state must allow gay marriage.

Citing "far-reaching implications," Acting Attorney General John Hoffman made the request in a letter to the state Supreme Court, which usually does not weigh in on cases until after an appeals court has made a ruling on them.

Hoffman said he is also asking the judge who issued the decision Friday to grant a stay, delaying the implementation date from Oct. 21 until the matter can be settled.

An appeal from Christie's administration is no surprise. Within hours of the ruling, Christie's spokesman issued a statement saying he did not intend to let the trial court order stand in an issue in an issue that has been fought repeatedly both in New Jersey's courts and Legislature.

Advocates for gay marriage did not want Christie, a possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate, to continue his fight against allowing same-sex couples to tie the knot in New Jersey. But they do want the issue fast-tracked to the state's top court if he does continue to fight it.

Democratic legislative leaders said as much at a news conference on Friday.

"We know it's going there so there should be no delay," Senate President Steve Sweeney said. "By Oct. 21st, people should know, yes or no. "

Last week's ruling by Judge Mary Jacobson sided firmly with six same-sex couples and the gay rights group Garden State Equality. They argued that by denying same-sex marriage rights, the state is blocking its lesbian and gay couples benefits that the federal government is now allowing in light of a June ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Christie's administration contends that it's the federal government, not the state, that should be held responsible for denying the benefits.

The issue is still being contended in the Legislature, too.

Lawmakers passed a law last year to allow gay marriage, but Christie vetoed it. At Monday's news conference, Democrats light-heartedly discussed wedding plans with gay couples in the room as Sweeney announced plans to post gay marriage for an override vote as soon after the Nov. 5 election. Sweeney said he could count on 27 of 40 senators to vote yes. In the Assembly, 54 of 80 votes would be needed.

Democrats control both houses of the Legislature but not by veto-proof majorities. They have never overridden one of Christie's vetoes and have until mid-January to hold the vote.

Christie has said repeatedly that he favors civil unions, which offer gay and lesbian couples benefits of marriage but not the title.

Christie also asked that gay marriage be decided by public vote, but most gay-rights advocates rejected that position, arguing that marriage equality is a civil right that doesn't belong on the ballot.

Thirteen states allow same-sex marriage. New Jersey's civil union law has been in effect since 2006.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/30/chris-christie-gay-marriage-appeal_n_4019862.html

Pictures added as attachments will not show up in the preview window. You can use our BitBucket to upload the image there and then use the code it will give you to post that image.

BitBucket found here : https://www.gaytorrent.ru/bitbucket.php

Once the upload is complete in BitBucket the system will give you an https code.

To post that image you will need to use the BBcodes for image as follows :

[img]your image code here[/img]

  leatherbear

Same-sex marriage proponent Kat McGuckin of Oaklyn, New Jersey.

New York City (AFP) - A judge has ordered the Northeastern US New Jersey to allow gay marriage, saying a ban goes against a historic Supreme Court ruling earlier this year.

Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson ruled that such marriages should be authorized as of October 21, writing that "same-sex couples must be allowed to marry in order to obtain equal protection of the law under the New Jersey Constitution."

Gay couples in this small East Coast state have been able to enter into civil unions.

But in her decision Friday, Jacobson wrote that such unions kept gay couples from enjoying federal benefits.

Whereas before June's Supreme Court ruling "same-sex couples in New Jersey would have been denied federal benefits regardless of what their relationship was called, these couples are now denied benefits solely as a result of the label placed upon them by the state," she said.

The US Supreme Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which prevented same-sex couples from enjoying the same rights as heterosexual couples.

New Jersey's Republican governor, Chris Christie, vetoed a bill to legalize gay marriage last year and his office indicated it would appeal Jacobson's decision.

The ruling marked the first time a judge used the recent Supreme Court decision to allow gay marriage in a state that bans it.

Experts say similar moves in other states could follow suit.

Thirteen US states and the capital Washington allow same-sex marriage in the United States.

http://news.yahoo.com/judge-orders-jersey-allow-gay-marriage-235557918.html

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Pasta baron apologizes for anti-gay comments

Stefania D'Alessandro

Barilla, the world's leading pasta maker, and Chairman Guido Barilla have issued an apology for anti-gay remarks the chairman made.

"Through my entire life, I have always respected every person I've met, inlcuding gays and their families, without any distinction," Barilla said in a video apology posted on the company's Facebook page.

He said he was "depressed" and "saddened" by reaction to his comments.

Barilla had said to an Italian radio station that his company would never use a gay family in its advertising.

"I would never do (a commercial) with a homosexual family, not for lack of respect but because we don't agree with them. Ours is a classic family where the woman plays a fundamental role," Barilla, 55, said in an interview with Radio 24 on Wednesday.

"It is clear that I have a lot to learn about the lively debate concerning the evolution of the family," he said in the apology.

Barilla - one of the best known pasta brands around the world - is one of Italy's biggest advertisers, and for many years has used the image of a happy family living in an idealized version of the Italian countryside, with the slogan: "Where there's Barilla, there's home."

(Read more: Labor Dept. says legally married gay couples have federal rights)

In the interview, Barilla had said he opposed adoption by gay parents, but was in favor of allowing gay marriage, which is not legal in Italy. His comment about advertising was in response to a direct question about whether he would ever feature a gay family in his company's commercials.

If gays "like our pasta and our advertising, they'll eat our pasta, if they don't like it then they will not eat it and they will eat another brand," he said.

(Read more: Gay investors seek equality from SEC)

Aurelio Mancuso, head of gay rights group Equality Italia, said Barilla's comments were an "offensive provocation" and called for a boycott of the company's pasta, sauces and snacks.

"We accept the invitation from the Barilla owner to not eat his pasta," Mancuso said. Many Italians used social media to voice support for a boycott.

(Read more: Putin says no discrimination against gays in Russia)

Alessandro Zan, a gay member of parliament, said on Twitter: "You can't mess around with consumers, including gay ones."

— Reuters contributed to this article.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101069801?__source=yahoo|finance|headline|headline|story&par=yahoo&doc=101069801|Pasta%20baron%20apologizes%20fo

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to GT.ru!!!

I would love to see you practice for your Blog in our Forums  :cheers:

A few Forum reputations points for you then!!!

Advocates are launching an LGBT-specific Obamacare campaign. Here’s why.

By Sarah Kliff

States and nonprofits are already pouring billions of dollars into efforts to enroll millions of uninsured Americans into Obamacare's new programs.

On Thursday, another group will throw its hat in the ring: Out 2 Enroll will launch with a lunch event at the White House as the first national Obamacare outreach campaign to focus exclusively on the LGBT community.

"This isn't, 'Oh, let's put a rainbow on it,'" says Kellan Baker, associate director for the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress, one of the campaign's funders. "What we've seen from our research, and our experience in the LGBT community, is that there are serious issues that we're going to need to address."

The LGBT community is more likely to lack health insurance coverage than heterosexuals. Particularly, Baker thinks that reaching the LGBT community will be a tougher sell–and one that requires more targeted messaging than other outreach campaigns will be able to provide.

Two challenges in particular stuck out in polling research that Out 2 Enroll recently conducted, working with polling firm Perry Undem.

First, focus groups showed a lot of skepticism from transgendered people that the health plans on the new marketplaces would meet their health care needs. And there was concern that, even if they called up the plan to find out, the person on the other end would likely have no idea.

"They were some of the most eye-opening focus groups I've ever done," says Tresa Undem, a Perry Undem co-founder. "They have been discriminated against to such a big extent, in the insurance world and the health care world. They all have the same experience with exclusions, and they come to this issue incredibly skeptical."

Undem also noticed a common theme among the lesbian, gay and bisexual people she polled. One-third of them had, at some point, tried to get a same-sex partner onto a company insurance plan. Half said they had trouble getting their partner signed up, and 72 percent felt discriminated against in the process.

"The standard messaging you'll see from other groups is, 'Look at all these new options,'" says Undem, who has also done polling work for Enroll America. "That won't work with this group, because it says nothing about medically necessary care, or whether their partner gets coverage."

Baker is also concerned about what kind of images the LGBT community might see, and whether it would feature same-sex couples as those who could benefit from the law.

"Those indications that there are couples that look like them, language that is inclusive and non-discriminatory, those are actually big motivators for consideration," Baker says. "We don't know if another initiative will address those needs."

At the White House lunch, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and a number of health law supporters will discuss how best to do health law outreach.

Over the next six months, Baker says, the group is "planning a series of regional meetings in some high priority enrollment states like Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin. We'll be having these regional meetings to introduce folks to our research."

If additional funding comes through, the group will also look into hiring outreach workers across the country to help connect LGBT individuals with enrollment options.

http://out2enroll.org/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/12/advocates-are-launching-an-lgbt-specific-obamacare-campaign-heres-why/

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Thank you for emailing the head of the International Olympics Committee and demanding that he go on the record about whether lebian, gay, bi and trans people are included in the Olympic Principle 6 of non-discrimination.  Bach needs to know the world is watching and waiting for his answer – the dignity and credibility of the Olympics as a force for good are on the line.

Will you take one more step and phone the Olympics Committee to ask them the same question out loud? It will only take a minute, and it will reinforce the thousands of emails they're already receiving.

Just dial: +41 21 621 61 11. You'll hear a long message in French and English and then a tone. You can then read the following script, or ask the question in your own words:

"Hi, I'm calling to ask President Bach to publicly confirm that lesbian, gay, bi and trans people are included in the Olympic Principle 6 of nondiscrimination. I am concerned that the International Olympics Committee just said that it is satisfied that Russia will not violate the Olympic Charter, even though there is growing anti-gay violence, arrests, and discrimination in that country. Thank you."

Thank you for going All Out,

Andre, Jeremy and the rest of the All Out team.

P.S. If you have Twitter, you can also tweet at the Olympics Committee by clicking the button here: TWEET

Hi [you],

This is outrageous. The Olympics just said they don't think Russia is violating the Olympic Charter – even though Russians are facing anti-gay arrests, violent attacks, and exclusion.

Olympic host nations are supposed to obey seven principles and Principle 6 says discrimination of any kind is not allowed. But, the Olympic Committee is now acting like lesbian, gay, bi and trans people just don’t count.

Equality doesn't work like that, so their position needs to be clear. I just sent an email to the new Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach to ask him if lesbian, gay, bi and trans people are protected by Principle 6.

Will you join me here:

www.allout.org/email-olympics-pres

     

Dear GT.ru Members,

The head of Barilla, the world's biggest pasta company just said, "We won’t include gays in our ads, because we value the traditional family."

In the face of growing public outcry, he tried to backtrack but then added, "I absolutely don’t respect adoptions in gay families."

It’s time for Barilla to step up and show that it’s love that makes a family, not an outdated sense of tradition.

Barilla’s already shown that he’s vulnerable to public pressure. Now we’re asking him to give us more than a lipservice apology and actually set a positive example in Italy and around the world. Sign now to ask Barilla to show a gay family in one of their future ads.

www.allout.org/barilla

By John Cloud September 26, 2013

In the weeks after the June 26 U.S. Supreme Court decision gutting the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)—the 1996 law that barred any federal recognition of same-sex relationships—gay Americans exulted in pride parades around the country, with placards, buttons, and even underwear declaring “Ding Dong DOMA’s Dead.” But the most consequential response to the ruling came from an unlikely source: the Internal Revenue Service. On Aug. 29, the IRS said spouses in legal gay marriages could refile tax returns as joint couples for up to three years after their weddings. For some, the change would potentially mean thousands of dollars in refunds.

For taxpayers such as Evan Wolfson, however, IRS Revenue Ruling 2013-17 has prompted more ambivalence than elation. The 56-year-old Wolfson is the Harvard-educated attorney who runs Freedom to Marry, the leading organization advocating gay-straight equality in marriage laws. He helped devise the strategy that led to United States v. Windsor, the decision refuting DOMA. He not only has co-authored crucial legal briefs supporting gay marriage, he’s helped conceive many of the political tactics used in the 2012 elections to change the direction of the debate.

In October 2011, four months after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a law allowing the state’s same-sex couples to wed, Wolfson married Cheng He, a health-care consultant he had met online in 2002. Their marriage was featured prominently in the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times. (I married my partner, Christian, the same month, although with far less fanfare.)

STORY: The IRS's Gay-Marriage Tax Problem

In the two years after getting married, Wolfson had his accountant send a letter to the IRS noting, he says, “that we were filing as separate even though we were married. For reasons of justice and education, I wanted to be on record.” The new IRS regulations don’t obligate gays to refile their taxes jointly, as married straight couples almost always do. Still, given Wolfson’s work on marriage equality, you might think he’d be first in line. But Wolfson has not given much thought to refiling his 2011 and 2012 returns. “Now as I approach it, I do so as a routine tax matter,” he says. “It may or may not be worth it.” Wolfson and He might end up paying more under the marriage penalty, which punishes couples that earn roughly equal salaries. They don’t want to report anything for prior years. Wolfson makes the point that equality means gay people should have “the range of choices” that straight people do when it comes to taxes, and that includes doing everything legally allowable to avoid paying them.

Wolfson’s stance shows how tricky the post-DOMA landscape has become—not just for gay couples who must now run numbers on how the ruling will affect their finances, but also for companies that previously required gay employees to use after-tax dollars to pay for health benefits for spouses. Many, from smaller startups to Google (GOOG) to Time Warner (TWX)—where I worked as a Time magazine journalist for 15 years—have struggled to promote gay-friendly workplaces and still comply with laws requiring that gay and straight employees be treated differently. Now those companies are trying to figure out how much they might owe gay employees who were married in the pre-Windsor era.

To put all this in context, it’s important to remember how fast the gay marriage debate changed. Gays filed a few token marriage equality cases in the 1970s and ’80s, but by the 1990s, gay activists had abandoned the fight—it appeared to be a loser in the courtroom and at the ballot box. Liberals worried that the issue could follow a trajectory similar to the abortion debate, which had helped create a new generation of conservative activists.

During the ’90s, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest gay political organization in the world, was focused on helping pass basic nondiscrimination ordinances in local jurisdictions as well as forging ties with corporate America. HRC’s first major foray into the marriage debate happened in 1998, when Hawaiians were debating one of the first state constitutional amendments to prohibit same-sex marriage. HRC spent an unprecedented $1 million on the battle and still lost 2 to 1.

STORY: The $51 Billion Wedding Industry Toasts a Post-DOMA Bump

After that defeat, gay activists retreated again from the marriage fight. In the interim, Wolfson as well as Mary Bonauto, a lawyer with a relatively small Boston-based group called Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, refined their legal arguments. Bonauto eventually worked with attorney Roberta Kaplan of the American Civil Liberties Union to push the case of Edith Windsor, a lesbian who had married her partner in Canada in 2007. The marriage was recognized by New York State, but when her wife died, Windsor had to pay more than $360,000 in federal estate taxes to inherit her property. The bill would have been zero had Windsor been a man. The ACLU, Wolfson, and Bonauto worked quietly to ensure the case would move slowly but deliberately through the judicial system.

STORY: The DOMA Ruling's Implications for Employers Explained

Among the nation’s 313 million people, about 3.8 percent, or 11.9 million, identify themselves as gay or lesbian, according to the Williams Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles. Based on many years of social psychology research, it’s fair to say the true gay population is higher—perhaps double. Today gay couples can marry in 13 states and the District of Columbia. By the time Windsor’s case reached the Supreme Court, about 230,000 gay Americans had been legally married, Christian and I among them. Prior to DOMA’s downfall, our accountant had recommended filing separately for both federal and state taxes to receive a larger return. The tax implications of gay marriage were still in flux.

We celebrated after the Windsor ruling, but then came the hangover. Over the years, many gay couples—mostly wealthy ones—had avoided paying millions of dollars in taxes by filing as singles. And financial advice firms specializing in gay wealth had developed an industry showing them how to do so.

Wealth adviser Salandra says at least 75 percent of her married clients will pay more because of the Windsor ruling. She is advising most not to file retroactive returns

“I work it so that legally, there’s the best situation for the household,” says Tina Salandra, 55, who manages roughly 550 accounts as part of her accounting practice with Christopher Street Financial, a leading wealth advice firm in New York for gay people. One old-fashioned method was for older gay people to legally adopt younger partners as children. Because the sexual and financial politics of such arrangements get so creepy so fast, Salandra doesn’t like to dwell on them. But she does say that at least 75 percent of her married clients will pay more because of the Windsor ruling. She’s advising most not to file retroactive returns that will reflect their legally married status at the time.

BLOG: DOMA’s Demise: A Wake-Up Call for Employers

In 2010, Salandra’s boss, Christopher Street Financial founder Jennifer Hatch, married her partner, Susanne Smith, a high-end realtor. They had been together for 19 years, during which Hatch advised thousands of clients on all the strategies to get around—or benefit from—the fact that gay unions weren’t recognized in the tax code. Do you have a younger girlfriend? Adopt her as your daughter. Have a big house? Give the entire mortgage tax deduction to the big earner and call your stay-at-home spouse a “head of household” who has dependents (the kids), and maybe continuing-education expenses.

Hatch and Smith know all the tricks, but they’re getting older. Filing joint federal taxes will cost them thousands because their incomes are so close. On the other hand, the prospect of paying inheritance taxes for their own property, should one of them die, seems ridiculous. And they couldn’t resist the psychological pull of being equal, being married—it gave her “the shivers” in a good way, Hatch says.

I had felt the same way. After the DOMA decision, I felt flush with equality—compelled in a way that sent me back to my undergrad copy of Democracy in America, where Alexis de Tocqueville had written that passion for equality can become “ardent, insatiable, eternal, and invincible.” I wanted to announce to the federal government that mine was a fully legal marriage, one authorized at the Office of the City Clerk in one of its pastel-colored secular chapels. So I told the IRS earlier this year that I was married in 2011, and I refiled my taxes. In my case, because my husband works in the nonprofit art world and there’s a sizable difference in our salaries, I would be getting a check for roughly $3,000 from the federal government and paying $330 to New York State.

Demographers still aren’t clear on how the overall tax bills of gay Americans will be affected by the changes in the law, partly because the population of gay couples hasn’t been rigorously studied. Less affluent gays will likely benefit the most from the DOMA ruling; but if you and your same-sex spouse earn roughly the same, don’t rush to H&R Block (HRB). Hatch was happy for me, but she mutes her democratic exuberance when talking to clients. Recently she helped persuade one couple to wait a year to marry. Both make a lot of money, but one will be quitting next year to raise a child. “It’s going to save them several thousands of dollars to wait just a year,” she says.

And so gay couples slowly begin to see marriage with less exhilaration: It’s a romantic covenant, yes, but it’s also a financial deal that benefits from deliberation.

Brian Moulton, the 34-year-old legal director of HRC, hasn’t proposed to (or received a proposal from) his partner of 10 years. Moulton says that for a lot of gay people, there was an initial sprint to the altar. The DOMA decision, he says, is a call to consider everything marriage means: “It might be less starry-eyed—let’s go do this—and more ‘Hmm, what would this mean for us financially?’ ”

Which makes sense—we all hate the IRS equally. But what about all that sweat that got DOMA overturned? What about the hundreds of protests and petitions and rallies? If we are fighting merely for the right to avoid as many tax bills as straight people, should we be fighting so hard?

What about the hundreds of protests and petitions and rallies? If we are fighting merely for the right to avoid as many tax bills as straight people, should we be fighting so hard?

Perhaps the battlegrounds will shift. As the political and legal barriers to gay marriage fall away, private employers may find themselves under more pressure to compensate gay employees for benefits that went unclaimed while more restrictive laws were in place. Thanks to HRC’s efforts, much of the business community has instituted progressive policies to attract and retain gay workers. By the early ’00s, it had become clear to human resources departments that to compete for gay talent, companies would have to start making up for disparities in how the federal government forced them to treat gay employees in matters such as health insurance.

While I was employed by Time Warner, my husband wasn’t initially covered by the company’s health plan; after he was included, Ihad to pay for Christian’s insurance with after-tax dollars. This cost me $400 a month, or roughly $9,000 during the years I worked there after we were married.

Making a corporate commitment to gay equality is one thing; actually writing checks for thousands of dollars’ worth of retroactive benefits is another. When I called Time Warner for this story, a spokesperson told me that I had been eligible for something called the tax-equalization benefit, a payment that would have reimbursed me for the after-tax money I paid to cover Christian. Many media and tech companies have instituted such benefits to draw gay workers, but I never heard a word about it before I called. It’s how many employee ben-efits work: You may have signed up for reimbursements for your parking expenses, but the company doesn’t feel obligated to remind you to keep claiming them when they’re about to expire.

The question facing businesses is whether they have a special obligation to do more this time—and allow married gay couples to claim any benefits they would have received if they were straight. The uncertain pace of the business response to the Windsor ruling stands in ironic contrast to the immediacy of the IRS response. As Wolfson points out, companies have been put in an awkward position. “Businesses, for a long period, were ahead of the government on these issues,” he says. “Businesses need clarity and consistency. Now it’s very clear where the law and the center of gravity are going for the business world. Now that the law is clear—as clear as the moral answer has always been—companies that had this windfall should make their employees whole.” And those gay employees have to decide what justice means after years of unequal treatment.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-26/gay-couples-tax-returns-to-refile-jointly-or-not?campaign_id=yhoo

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ROME (Reuters) - Guido Barilla, chairman of the world's leading pasta manufacturer, prompted calls for a consumer boycott on Thursday after telling Italian radio his company would never use a gay family in its advertising.

"I would never do (a commercial) with a homosexual family, not for lack of respect but because we don't agree with them. Ours is a classic family where the woman plays a fundamental role," Barilla, 55, said in an interview with Radio 24 on Wednesday.

Barilla - one of the best known pasta brands around the world - is one of Italy's biggest advertisers, and for many years has used the image of a happy family living in an idealized version of the Italian countryside, with the slogan: "Where there's Barilla, there's home".

In the interview, Barilla said he opposed adoption by gay parents, but was in favor of allowing gay marriage, which is not legal in Italy. His comment about advertising was in response to a direct question about whether he would ever feature a gay family in his company's commercials.

If gays "like our pasta and our advertising, they'll eat our pasta, if they don't like it then they will not eat it and they will eat another brand," he said.

Aurelio Mancuso, head of gay rights group Equality Italia, said Barilla's comments were an "offensive provocation" and called for a boycott of the company's pasta, sauces and snacks.

"We accept the invitation from the Barilla owner to not eat his pasta," Mancuso said. Many Italians used social media to voice support for a boycott.

Alessandro Zan, a gay member of parliament, said on Twitter: "You can't mess around with consumers, including gay ones."

Barilla issued a statement on Thursday apologizing, explaining that he was trying to say "simply that the woman plays a central role in a family."

"Barilla features families in its commercials because it embraces anyone, and they have always been identified with our brand," he said.

Spanish film star Antonio Banderas features in the latest publicity campaign for Barilla's Mulino Bianco cookies and breakfast cakes. They feature him baking biscuits with children and talking to a chicken called Rosita.

(Reporting by Steve Scherer; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

http://news.yahoo.com/italian-pasta-barons-anti-gay-prompts-boycott-call-152312451–finance.html

Marina KORENEVA 2 hours ago

Saint Petersburg (AFP) - Vitaly Milonov believes that British actor Stephen Fry is a “bringer of evil”, thinks homosexuality is a perversion and thanks God for giving Russia Vladimir Putin to defend its values.

Milonov, a lawmaker in the local parliament of Russia’s second city of Saint Petersburg, has become a hate figure for gay rights activists and not just for his inflammatory rhetoric.

He has also had a concrete effect on modern Russian society by introducing a hugely controversial law into the local parliament outlawing “gay propaganda”.

Once passed by the former imperial capital, the law was picked up by deputies in the federal lower house of parliament the State Duma and passed nationwide and was signed into law by President Putin in June.

But activists say the law can be used for a broad crackdown against gays in Russia and the controversy has created a huge headache for the Kremlin which has faced calls for a boycott of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games.

But Milonov remains defiant in the face of the furore and makes no secret of his views about Fry who has called for Russia to be stripped of its right to host the Games and led an increasingly visible Internet campaign.

“For me Stephen Fry is a bringer of evil, as he expresses ideas which are evil,” Milonov told AFP in an interview in Saint Petersburg.

Milonov and Fry became arch enemies after the two men held a face-to-face meeting in Saint Petersburg in March and have traded insults through the media ever since.

Fry is an implacable critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he once memorably said looked like the Dobby the House Elf from the Harry Potter books.

'We don't have to apologise'

Despite the outcry sparked by the adoption of the law both in Saint Petersburg and nationwide, Milonov sees no harm in what he describes as “preventative” legislation.

“It’s a declaration of our values, our response to the challenges of the present time.”

“Thank God that we have Putin, who defends the basic interests of Russia, for defending its values,” said Milonov, saying that Russia “needs to resist the wave of degradation that has seized the Western world.”

“I do not know why we have to apologise in front of Westerners. The preaching tone that they adopted in this area does not suit us.”

The law orders fines for individuals and organisations deemed to have violated the law, and, unusually, also singles out foreigners who risk fines of up to 100,000 rubles ($3,106), detention for 15 days and deportation.

Many commenters believe Russia underestimated the international reaction to the law, which now risks overshadowing the Sochi Winter Games, the biggest event in its post-Soviet history.

But Milonov, who describes himself as a “man of European culture” defends the law as part of a promotion of family values in Russia and the protection of children.

“We have to defend the future of our children,” said Milonov, who has children aged four and one.

He railed against the legalisation of gay marriage in some European countries, describing it as a “symptom of an illness in society, a spiritual degradation”.

“Ninety-five percent of Russians are against gay marriage. Gays do not have any support in Russian society.”

“We could say that paedophilia is a sexual choice we could say that murder is one way to survive. But truth is truth and we cannot change the way things are. Homosexuality is not normal, I’m sorry.”

Milonov’s rants against homosexuals would see him outcast as an extremist in European societies but in Russia they fall in line with an increasingly conservative political trend.

President Vladimir Putin this month put the gay propaganda law firmly in the context of Russia’s shrinking population, implying that Russia wanted to avoid encouraging homosexuality in order to bolster the birthrate.

“Russia and European countries have a big problem, the birth rate is low, Europeans are dying out. Same-sex marriages do not produce children,” Putin said at a meeting of the Valdai discussion club.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/russia-gay-law-creator-calls-stephen-fry-evil-042448202–oly.html

:blownose: Sad News indeed for Russian LGBT activism  :blownose: We can only hope his group of friends will carry on his work and plans for the future of LGBT Russian citizens.