In London, Moscow Mayor Says Homosexuality Is ‘Wrong'

Moscow's Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has called homosexuality "wrong and unusual" in a London news conference attended by his Paris and Berlin counterparts, both of them gay.

Mr. Luzhkov, in the British capital for a meeting of the leaders of Europe's four largest cities, also repeated his opposition to a gay-pride parade planned for May 27 in Moscow. He has called such a march "satanic." Last year's Moscow Gay Pride parade, held in defiance of a ban, was broken up by police.

"Through the gay parade you promote some uncertain people, and it becomes an invitation to acquire this quality of the sexual minorities," Mr. Luzhkov, speaking through an interpreter, told reporters yesterday at the briefing with the mayors of London, Paris, and Berlin.

The Moscow mayor, in office since 1992, conceded that Paris's Mayor Bertrand Delanoe and Berlin's Mayor Klaus Wowereit disagreed with his views when they met with London's Mayor Ken Livingstone, a longtime supporter of gays and lesbians.

The mayors discussed the issue "in a peaceful and calm way," Mr. Delanoe said. "We have to look at equality of rights, and that leads us to combat every form of discrimination or stigmatizing of individuals because of their sex, their religion, color of their skin, or their personal identity," he said.

Messrs. Livingstone and Wowereit didn't comment publicly on Mr. Luzhkov's views. Mr. Livingstone issued a statement yesterday saying he condemns "all acts of homosexual discrimination" and "asserts the basic human and civil right of gays and lesbians to peacefully demonstrate."

The mayors also agreed to cooperate in areas such as transportation, climate change, terrorism, and planning. They will meet next year in Paris.

A dozen gay-rights advocates picketed outside London City Hall during the meeting. Organizers are planning to go ahead with the Moscow parade, the London-based gay-rights group OutRage! said in a statement sent by e-mail.