Facebook’s recently-launched relationships status icons identifying gay and lesbian users who are married have prompted a backlash against the social networking site in Russia.
Facebook added the new married icons to Timeline, Facebook’s alternative profile which allows users to highlight photos, posts and life events chronologically.
One icon includes two brides, the other two grooms.
According to RT, previously known as Russia Today, religious activists have issued an ultimatum that Facebook stop “flirting with sodomites” and remove all content promoting homosexuality.
A demand that Facebook comply within 24 hours was ignored, spurring the activists to launch a petition calling on the government to re-criminalize gay sex.
Vladimir Roslyakovsky, the leader of the Orthodox community in the city of Saratov, said the petition had attracted more than 34,000 electronic signatures in just 3 days.
“We demand only one thing: Facebook should be blocked in the entire country because it openly popularizes homosexuality among minors,” Roslyakovsky is quoted as saying.
Roslyakovsky accused the United States of trying to turn Russia “into likeness of Sodom and Gomorrah.”
“But I am confident that Russian laws and reasonable citizens will be able to protect their children from a fierce attack of sodomites,” he added.
Earlier this year, several Russian municipalities approved laws barring “homosexual propaganda to minors.”
by On Top Magazine Staff
Source – On Top Magazine
