Eurovision: Gays go home

If you don't want your city to be visited by large numbers of gay men, Muscovites, it's probably not a good idea to host the Eurovision Song Contest.

Eurovision is being used as a focus for a day of gay rights activity in the capital - you'll recall the last major music-related gay rights event in Moscow didn't end well - and the Russian bigots are out in force:

Just across the road from a statue of Pushkin, a handful of demonstrators have put up a modest sign. It reads simply: "Moscow is not Sodom." As a cold wind whips through the Russian capital's Pushkinskaya square, activists hand out leaflets showing two men kissing, crossed out in angry red ink with the slogan: "Say no to spiritual terrorism."

Ah, it does say much about the family of man that Russian homophobic right-wing nutjobs are almost indistinguishable from American homophobic right-wing nutjobs. Under the skin, we're all the same. Apart from homosexuals, of course, who are different and wrong.

The mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, is proudly homophobic, but is faced with damage to the city's expensive investment in Eurovision if he stops the planned pride march - the Dutch have already said they won't sing if the march doesn't go ahead, and given they're one of the better entrants for the contest, an awkward, attention-drawing gap on the Saturday evening television across Europe might be a little too much attention.

On the other hand, maybe the mayor wouldn't want to ban the march, given that the likely painful results don't seem to be anything he worries much about:

Few are optimistic the rally will go off without trouble. "Groups of fanatics and extremists will be roaming the streets in the centre of Moscow looking for people to beat up," Nikolai Alekseev, the organiser of the Slavic Pride rally, told the Guardian. "Nobody will care. Moscow police will do nothing to protect them." Asked whether gay British fans should avoid travelling to Moscow this Saturday, he warned: "Everybody has to make their own choice. But they won't be safe."

Well, that's cheery then. The thought of gay people being beaten up by police is quite grisly, and the Guardian is quick to put it into some sort of context:

Nonetheless, there is now a distinct possibility that Russian nationalists and neo-Nazis will once again beat up gay demonstrators – as well as visiting Eurovision fans – in what would be a severe blow to Russia's international reputation and to Eurovision, already reeling from eastern European bloc voting scandals.

Yes, it's almost as bad having a secret policeman crack your skull open because you love other men as it for Terry Wogan to have to watch Bulgaria and Romania awarding each other twelve points each.

Riot Said Fred: Moscow gay march attacked

What a charming place Moscow is these days: Mayor Yuri Luzhkov suggested that gay rights marches are "satanic acts" and banned plans for one in the city; when a group of Russian gays and international sympathisers attempted to protest this decision, gangs of violent thugs attacked them.

And the police? They arrested the targets, not the criminals.

Amongst those injured was Richard Fairbrass, who was punched in the face while talking to Reuters (Right Said Fred were in town to play a gig):

Richard Fairbrass, a gay singer with the British pop group Right Said Fred, was punched in the face and kicked by anti-gay activists while speaking to Reuters in an interview.

"We understand this is a gay event and so we came down here today," Fairbrass said before being hit. Blood dripped from his face after the attack.

Tatu had made an appearance at the start of the rally, but appear to have been away from the trouble; Peter Tatchell was punched in the face and dragged away by two policemen.

The trouble seems to have started from a nasty mixture of nationalists and Russian Orthodox fundamentalists who gathered to shout the usual rubbish about sodomites and disease. Interestingly, the governments of the rest of the world seem quicker to pursue Putin over the selling of possibly unlicensed mp3s than they are about this, and other, increasing abuses of human rights in the country. It seems that you're fine to send your police in to help out with a spot of queerbashing, but if you flog a few dodgy Phil Collins tracks online, then you've just gone too far.