Vitaly Milonov: How the architect of Russia's anti-gay laws accidentally appeared in a lesbian kiss selfie

The senator outwardly claimed that gay people “rape kids”, that any violence gay people say they have suffered is “fake information”

Vitaly Milonov is one of Russia’s most notorious homophobes.

The senator claimed that gay people “rape kids”, that any violence gay people say they have suffered under extreme vigilante homophobes is “fake information”, and that in actual fact, it’s gay men that go around beating up straight men.

“I think that much violence goes from gay people to straight people,” he told French journalist Julien Pain outside Queer Fest Film Festival in 2013. “Much more violence.”

So against the idea of same-sex relationships is he, that he masterminded the country’s famously controversial ‘gay propaganda’ law, which was signed into law by Vladimir Putin in June 2013 “for the Purpose of Protecting Children from Information Advocating for a Denial of Traditional Family Values”.

It includes the distribution of any material referencing or eluding to gay relationships, defined as “[aimed] at causing minors to form non-traditional sexual predispositions, notions of attractiveness of non-traditional sexual relationships, distorted ideas about the equal social value of traditional and non-traditional sexual relationships, or imposing information about non-traditional sexual relationships which raises interest in such relationships insofar as these acts do not amount to a criminal offence.”

So when a pair of lesbian LGBT activists encountered a sleeping and blissfully unaware Senator Milonov on a flight from Moscow to St Petersburg recently, they decided to protest it in the best way possible – by making him the star of their gay kiss selfie.

“These crazy idiots were so brave that after taking the photo they ran to the end of the plane, sat there and didn’t even stick their necks out until the end of the flight,” a bemused Milonov told Flashnord of the image, which was uploaded to Facebook by the campaigners.

The aptly timed memento comes as the Senator attempts to seal a loophole in Russian law that allowed a Lesbian couple to marry in the country.

Irina Shumilova and Alyona Fursova wed at a registry office in St Petersburg in January.