
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, May 29, 1993                   TAG: 9305290104
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Short

RUSSIA REVOKES LAW PUNISHING GAYS

Breaking with repressive Stalin-era morality that made homosexuality a crime, Russia's legislature has revoked a law that punished sex between consenting males with a prison term of up to five years.

"It's a grandiose event. We have long been waiting for it," said Vladislav Ortanov, 40, editor of the gay periodical Risk.

An underground nightclub near a park in northeastern Moscow that caters to gay men and lesbians planned to celebrate the legal change.

The 1934 law adopted under Joseph Stalin that sent gay men to prison or labor camp "was an outright violation of human freedom," Russian legislator Oleg V. Plotnikov declared. Canceling it "brings this part of our Criminal Code into accordance with the norms of international law," he said. - Los Angeles Times

by CNB