Discredited Anti-LGBT Researcher Addresses Russian Duma
It was just a matter of time before Paul Cameron surfaced in Russia once again (he has there in the past) to spread his toxic anti-LGBT propaganda. Buzzfeed that Cameron 鈥� who has by several academic professional organizations for his shoddy research methods and extreme anti-LGBT animus 鈥� was apparently invited to address a Duma roundtable on 鈥渇amily values.鈥� There, according to Buzzfeed, he falsely claimed, among other things, that a third of LGBT people support pedophilia.
We shouldn鈥檛 be surprised at statements like that from Cameron, who has been falsely linking LGBT people to pedophilia and making other, even more bizarre claims. When in 2010 in Krakow, Poland, for example, Cameron claimed that LGBT people have sex with animals. He has also relied on urban mythology to claim that gay men insert gerbils into their rectums.
Buzzfeed posted, with translations, some of the tweets that Russian lawmaker Alexander Sidyakin made during Cameron鈥檚 talk. From the tweets, Sidyakin, who works closely with Russian President Vladimir Putin, appears to support Russia鈥檚 current anti-gay laws and the passage of even more. In one tweet, Sidyakin claimed Cameron鈥檚 statistics were 鈥渋nteresting鈥� and, in another, bragged to a reporter that there was no need to include experts who disagree with Cameron, stating that 鈥淸w]e didn鈥檛 even invite a second point of view,鈥� suggesting that the roundtable is attempting to increase support for more anti-gay laws in Russia.
Cameron鈥檚 speech took place on October 13, just before the October 15-16 planning committee meetings of the World Congress of Families, which will be holding its international right-wing (and anti-LGBT) conference in Moscow next September. Several , including of the National Organization for Marriage (at least his second trip to Moscow ) and the Holocaust revisionist , were in attendance. It鈥檚 unclear whether Cameron attended the planning committee meetings.
Russia has been in the global spotlight since this past summer, when Putin signed a draconian anti-gay law that bans so-called 鈥渉omosexual propaganda鈥� directed at minors, followed by another law that prohibits same-sex foreign couples from adopting Russian children. In the wake of these laws, hate and violence against LGBT people in Russia . Another Russian lawmaker proposed a bill in September that would deny LGBT parents custody over their children, to support it. The lawmaker this month but is revising it for re-submission. Earlier this month, Russia because same-sex marriage is legal in Sweden. Russia is currently seeking to sign legal agreements with individual countries to ensure that Russian children are not adopted by LGBT parents.
As Russia works to pass even more such legislation and crack down even more on its LGBT population, expect more American anti-gay activists to involve themselves in that country鈥檚 politics in the coming months. They鈥檙e clearly receiving a warm welcome.
