MOSCOW (UPI) -- Russia's homosexual activists Friday celebrated a
major victory for gay rights in post-Soviet Russia following the repeal
of Article 121 of the Soviet criminal code, which outlawed consensual
sex between men.
	``This is great news for gays and lesbians in Russia,'' said
Vladislav Ortanov, editor of the Moscow gay magazine RISK. ``Just last
month we were convinced that this law would not be changed for at least
another year.''
	Parliament repealed the infamous Article 121 of Russia's Soviet-era
penal code, which criminalized sexual relations between men and
subjected violators to up to five years in prison.
	Russia's gays are beginning to emerge from the shadowy twilight to
which they were banished during the Soviet era, coaxed out of the closet
by a host of new nightclubs, magazines and social groups.
	But the existence of the so-called sodomy law -- though it had not
been strictly enforced in recent years -- meant gays were still subject
to possible criminal prosecution for their activities, despite their
increased confidence and the growing acceptance of homosexuality in
1990s Russia.
	The law already has been repealed in the former Soviet republics of
Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, which all inherited the
same Soviet criminal code. But Russia dragged its feet on the issue.
	Gay activists long called for repeal of the law, and hopes were
raised last May when President Boris Yeltsin sent Parliament a bill
proposing amendments to Russia's obsolete criminal code, including
changes to Article 121.
	The law was quietly repealed by a large parliamentary majority last
month, but it only came into effect -- and became public -- when it was
published Thursday in the official Parliament newspaper Rossiiskaya
Gazeta.
	``Article 121 was considered a hangover from the past, and violated
basic human rights, principally the right to a private life,'' said Lev
Ivanov, one of the parliamentary experts who worked on the law.
	``The only justification for it was the Soviet idea that everyone
should be the same and that any deviation from the norm should be
punished,'' he said.
	Ivanov noted that the Soviet code only banned sex between men and
made no mention of lesbianism, an ommission he described as ``yet
another curiosity of our criminal system.''
	The expert said anyone now in jail or being investigated under the
sodomy law could be released immediately although they had no right to
compensation or rehabilitation.
	The San Francisco-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights
Commission said last December there were 10 men in Moscow awaiting trial
for alleged violations of Article 121. These men could now be released
from custody.
	Despite the general euphoria among activists, some voiced a note of
caution and disappointment. ``The bad news is Article 121 still exists,''
said Kevin Gardner, director of a Moscow HIV/AIDS resource center.
	A clause of the article was left in force which bans homosexual sex
involving violence, coercion or minors. Gardner, a liason for local
lesbian and gay groups, said the law still enshrined homophobia by
retaining the part of Article 121 which distinguishes between homosexual
and heterosexual rape.
	``Rape is rape, but Russian society continues to view homosexual sex
and sex crimes as something different and worse than the heterosexual
counterpart,'' he said.