I don't know whether Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has been taking moral equivalency lessons from Dinish D'Souza, but his comments that gay parades are Satanic are attracting a lot of attention. Here's GayRussia's colorful version of the story (which uses the charming translation "Satanist happening"):

Mayor Luzhkov said today that he will not even allow this year's Pride march, scheduled for Sunday May 27.

"Last year, Moscow was unprecedentaly pressured to allow here a gay parade which can only be called a Satanist happening," he said in a speech at the State Kremlin Palace during 15th Christmas educational readings.

"We did not allow this gay parade and will not allow it in future."

Mr. Luzhkov then thanked Patriarch of All Russia, Alexi II, for his support in this difficult situation when, according to Luzhkov, Moscow authorities found themselves in the situation of huge pressure, especially from the West.

He said that is not appropriate "to propagate same-sex love" and "blasphemy, as if it is creativity and freedom of speech".

Nikolai Alekseev, a co-organiser of Moscow Pride, said that he was shocked at the Mayor's outburst.

"We are shocked by the statements of Mr. Luzhkov that "gay pride is a Satanist happening" and consider them as personal insult against the organisers and potential participants of the gay pride," he said.

"Such words in respect to huge number of homosexual people who live in Russia are not worthy of an official of such high standing".

I'm not quite sure about what the specific religious objection is, because unless the marchers are having sex in the streets, what they are doing by parading is advocacy of an opinion about their lifestyle. If the conduct the Mayor is preventing is speech, the question becomes: is Satanic speech prohibited in Russia? I realize Russia has no First Amendment, and I don't know to what extent it is governed by religious law, but even if it was, is there any religious prohibition on advocacy of a homosexual orientation or lifestyle? There is the Leviticus prohibition on certain conduct (lying "with a man as a woman"), but does that prohibition extend to advocating it?

If it is conceded for the sake of argument that homosexual conduct is "Satanic," where is that found? Is it in the Bible, or is it an interpretation? Does it declare only homosexual acts Satanic, or does it additionally declare their advocacy Satanic? If it is a religious argument, there has to be some citation to some text, otherwise it's just an ungrounded assertion of Satanism.

What else is Satanic? Apparently, the Russian Orthodox Church considers plenty of things Satanic, including Hinduism. In a letter to Mayor Luzhkov, the Archbishop of Moscow called the Hindu deity Krishna "satanic":

Respected Mr. Luzhkov - can you really allow the idolatrous disgrace to be erected for the glory of this wicked and malicious "god" Krishna? The construction of this Krishna "temple" is a blatant offense of our religious feelings, and an insult to the millennial religious culture of Russia, where the overwhelming majority of people, Orthodox Christians and Muslims, consider Krishna an evil demon, the personified power of hell opposing God. It is shown that even for Buddhists, Krishna is a negative figure, the head of black demons. Sikhs and Jains also consider him the most formidable demon.

Of course, modern Russia is a secular state, based on secular laws. But can these laws screen our peoples from the judgment of God? Can the Russian Constitution abolish our common responsibility for our acts before God?

Here we have people who (like the Hindus) indignantlly deny that they are Satanists, and claim the term is being hurled against them as an insult. But from a religious standpoint, they would seem to have the same rights as Satanists. As homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia, so they can't be accused of advocating illegal conduct either.

I'd say the Mayor is on shaky secular ground, and I think he might be on shaky religious ground too. Interestingly, as a former Communist Party official, he would have had to have most likely been an atheist, and would probably have been involved in the manufacture (see infra) of new Soviet Communist morality. Now he seems to have switched to the remanufacture of old morality.

I wonder how far it will go. Wife beating was once standard fare in the Orthodox Church. So was (and perhaps is) anti-Semitism.

History shows that times change, and morality changes with time. But there's no certainty about either.

I should be thankful to live in a country with a First Amendment, where calling people Satanists is as American as apple pie.