A monument to Steve Jobs has been removed from St. Petersburg in the aftermath of Tim Cook publicly coming out as gay.
While Cook’s eloquent and poignant essay was largely greeted by celebrations online, in Russia it prompted bigoted comments from politician Vitaly Milonov, whose government has now insisted the Jobs statue be removed as further punishment.
The Steve Jobs monument was erected after Jobs’ death. Featuring an interactive screen with photos, videos and text about Apple’s late co-founder, it was put up on the grounds of an IT university in January 2013, paid for by a Russian company called Western European Financial Union.
The monument was designed by local native Gleb Tarasov and was named “Sunny QR Code.”
According to the chief of Western European Financial Union — cited on Russian Radio station Biznes-FM — the removal of the sculpture was to comply with a law banning the spread of “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” among minors.
Source: Radio Free Europe
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
52 responses to “Steve Jobs monument removed by homophobic Russians”
Well, that’s Russia for you. I feel sorry Russians everywhere, but hey, its great to be an American.
How is it ‘great to be an American’ when 26 states still have laws banning same sex marriages?? All these people commenting about Russia’s anti-gay stance are so full of it. Let’s get our own house in order before popping off about other people’s affairs.
Incidentally, Pennsylvania, where the Gettysburg Address happened, was the very last state in the Northeast to legalize and recognize same sex marriages and didn’t do it until May of this year, yea, 6 months ago. Welcome to the 21st century Philadelphia.
Phobia is a medical term in case you didnt know. Instead of “homophobic” you should use anti-homosexual -term or something else. You can’t tell whole russia is “suffering” some sorts of phobia caused by men who stick their weeners in other mens holes.
Please stop using the term homophobic. It’s an ignorant term.
I’d say homophobic is a pretty apt word to use here. When you’re talking about a fear of gay people possibly introducing ebola to your country you’ve left any claim to rationality pretty far behind you.
I don’t think it’s a fear of gay people as much as it is a disdain for the sexual activity that gay men represent. I don’t think they like men sticking their genitals in each other’s mouths and rear ends. Why they are talking it out on Jobs’ and removing his monument is kind of silly since Jobs wasn’t gay.
How much time do you spend thinking about this and getting upset? I’m straight, living in a very gay part of San Francisco and I rarely think about the details of the gay sex life. Yet when I read something like what you wrote, I’m thinking, this person has visions of gay sex bouncing around in their heads they are getting very worked up.
Your own disdain has no importance in real life… this isn’t about how you feel, its about how others actively use those “feelings” to repress the rights of others.
Moron. It’s not about making people accept anything. It’s about NOT persecuting them for it in the first place. You know, live and let live. And I’m pretty sure there’s more heterosexuals performing those acts than gays, across the planet.
pretty sure he meant more heterosexuals doing oral and annal. I’m 100% you should have caught that.
Agreed.
No, no its really not.
I agree. Homophobia is a fear of people that are gay. This is not a fear of homosexuals, it is a disagreement with the homosexual life and with that attraction. What Russia is expressing is a very deep disagreement with homosexuality, the lifestyle, and the negative effect it has on a society as a whole. Christians have the same disagreements with homosexuality and they are labeled as homophobic.
What actually is happening is that many people who agree with homosexuality are intolerant of others who disagree with homosexuality, and instead of showing respect to those of us who do not agree with homosexuality they turn to hateful name calling, labels, and slandering us by calling us homophobic.
With that said, removing the Steve Jobs statue is just stupid. Steve Jobs wasn’t gay and even if he was I’m much more of the mind of showing love to homosexuals while not compromising your beliefs on homosexuality. This act is silly in my opinion.
Ah, the old “you’re intolerant of my intolerance” argument. The fact that you think homosexuality has a negative impact on society as a whole DOES show an irrational fear. So you my friend, are homophobic.
That’s a pretty lopsided and illogical line of thought. So if I think that something is bad for society then I must have a fear of it? Hhhmmm…so I suppose since I think that fast food is bad for society I must be afraid of fast food? Or perhaps because I think that sugar is bad for your teeth I must be afraid of sugar? So weird, because I can be in a fast food joint with no anxiety and I can handle a candy bar with no stress sweats. Perplexing!
Yes that is correct, your argument does not make sense. Whatsoever. Zilch. Nada.
On the contrary, my best friend is a born again Christian who has successfully left that life. The deeper story is that I was the first person she opened up to 10 years ago and my first response wasn’t “EW ICKY! Get away! I might get it!”, my first response was that of love asking her “What can I do to help?” For the next 7 years I hung out with her and her lesbian and gay friends, went to many gay clubs with her, and partied with all of her gay friends.
Wonderful deduction skills there, Sherlock. You analyzed me quite well. The reality is that I have been deep into the gay community and around gays in a much deeper and intimate way than most other straight people have been, perhaps even more than you.
The fear is from you. You are afraid of my belief and so you smear me and slander me, along with my ideological kin. But it won’t work because you have EPICLY succeeded in falsely labeling me.
You are so full of it! Judge thee lest yea be judged my friend. Who gave you the Devine right to make assessments on other people’s love? Hypocritical homophobe.
Aahh yes, the “Judge not” verse that everyone misquotes.
Actually, the entire verse (and thought) is this:
“Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. 2 For you will be treated as you treat others.[a] The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.” (Matthew 7:1-2)
Jesus is not telling us to “do not judge”, Jesus is telling us that if we do not want to be judged by the same standards that we judge others, then don’t judge. In other words, if you are justified in the standards that you use to judge others then it’s ok for you to judge others. In this context, I do not live the homosexual lifestyle or participate in homosexual acts so I am justified in judging that homosexuals are wrong. There is not any hypocrisy here, which is what Jesus was preaching about.
In fact, Scripture tells us to judge others, their actions, and their motives. This is consistent with Scripture telling us to have discernment when it comes to other people, and you cannot have discernment without judging. Judging is required as a Christian, what is important is to do it in love as Scripture tells us to, not with a heart of judgment.
Tell me, was Jesus judging when he called the Pharisees “vipers” and “hypocrites”? Was Jesus judging others when he tossed the money changing tables on the temple grounds and scolded them for turning his “father’s house into a den of thieves”?
It is interesting how the very people who proclaim that the Bible is inconsistent and contradictory prove that the Bible is indeed consistent and coherent.
The Message here: We are to judge others, their hearts, and their actions. However, we are to do it in a loving way. As 1 Corinthians 13 says:
“If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing…Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.”
“irrational fear”
Last time I checked, there was definitive proof that sugar is bad for your teeth, and that fast food can be bad for you. The only proof that homosexuality is bad for society exists in your mind, and in a foolish book. Your analogy is quite silly.
And here is a clue, homosexuals don’t need, or want your “help,” or your prayers… what they want is just to be seen as an equal without judgement.
Do you deny that you fear that society is harmed by homosexuality?
Seriously, just don’t ship any Apple products there. Like… Cool. If you are so against us and completely and utterly immature and close minded, then go on without our great contributions. See ya.
Russia is going to Russia. Is anyone surprised?
You mean the $hits.
It’s just a certain part of Russia. There are gays and gay supporters in Russia, so this was just the act of one person or a small group of people, but it’s ignorant to think the entire country feels this way. Just like it’s ignorant to think that all of America like gays, because the entire country doesn’t, only a subset of the country supports gays. So much ignorance is just getting WAY out of hand.
Do we think all Russians think this way? No, but your Government does, and is going back wards every single day.
Replace the word “gay”, in your statement with the word “blacks” and have a look at yourself in the mirror.
WTH? Jobs wasn’t gay, the current guy is. These cretin morons!
Who asked them to erect a ‘Steve Jobs monument’ anyway? In Russia, of all places! And in such bad taste… You’re very strange, Russia :|
True, most of their statues are of dictators who committed mass murder.
Who really cares what happens there? They are in love with a dictator who gives them enough cash to keep his subjects happy…once the money starts to run out, we will see the usual chaos that erupts as the west and friends raise their ecomic walls.
Can’t be a super power when you are just plain bully with muscle and not too many big guns.
It’s ridiculous to call them homophobic just because they’re uncomfortable with queers.
“uncomfortable”, like I’m so uncomfortable with you that if you act gay or speak of your gayness we’ll throw you in prison or beat you to death.
Which is what they do in just about every Islamic country. But that’s ok because if we didn’t like it we would be islamophobic.
May i suggest you look up the word, then give yourself an uppercut.
“homophobic” indicates fear of them, it’s not fear of them, they are just hated by normal people
And how do you get hatred? From fear.
Are you saying “normal” people hate someone because of something that will have zero affect on their lifes? Glad I’m not normal.
to the contrary, the sodomizers have nearly single handedly spread aids in the west, just recently they’ve been spreading infectious meningitis in New York and in California, I remember actup at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, no effect huh
From the Merriam-Webster website:
pho·bia
noun ˈfō-bē-ə
: an extremely strong dislike or fear of someone or something
Extremely strong dislike.
This makes about as much sense as dumb ass Japanese people protesting the John F. Kennedy pulling into Japan because they didn’t want nuclear powered carriers there.
Good job. I agree with them this time!
Good to know a River Rat agrees with them.
Truth hurts huh?
Haha, man… the Russian men behind this are cowards, and seriously don’t understand one thing about what it takes to be “manly”. They need to learn the definition behind courage. I suspect the Russian Government would get a long fantastically with the Tea Party.
You consider being Gay manly???!!!! Are you like seriously retarded beyond recognition? FUBAR? You seriously need to take a history class. Find anywhere in history where homosexuality was accepted until recently.
Then you are going to go on and mock God and the Bible a book thousands of years old that somehow predicted that this would happen and say it’s fake. Hahaha you sure seem to have a lot of common sense. You know what the real fairy tale is? You living in this brainwashed state of yours, WAKE UP!
Temporally removed for repairs.
http://www.kp.ru/daily/26301.2/3181397/
Russia finds out that Tim Cook is gay and now they no longer have an erection for Steve Jobs. Weird.
One theory is that it was removed before some homo-phobic Russian could deface or destroy it. I have nothing against Mr Cook for being gay. I could care less really, he can be who he wants. I think his coming out is a bad move, a huge distraction. What does he hope to accomplish? I would like for him to make better computers. That is all I care about. Yosemite is so buggy, dozens and dozens of tiny, irritating, sloppy problems. I do not think he is doing a very good job leading Apple. Terrible is the word I would use. The Macpro is just a joke, for all its specs, it is a cartoon version of a computer. The fever over the iPhone is just strange. Cult of Mac should renamed to cult of iphone. The Apple media, magazines and web sites are obsessed with itoys. No one here ever pushes back at the many signs of problems with the computers..they cannot be repaired, they cannot be supplemented, even adding memory is becoming a no from Apple. Yosemite so far on my four mac computers is a disaster, not in any big way, but just so many little bugs, it seems very poorly thought out. I do not think Steve Jobs would have released such an incomplete product. So who cares if he is gay? A lot of countries and cultures have laws against the gay, sadly, and in the end this pointless issue will distract…..Jobs never grandstanded on his personal life. I don’t care if Cook is gay but I do not see any value in his pounding his chest about it either. A very immature, and I really believe, rather empty man. I do not believe he can successfully lead Apple. His record so far is mundane in the extreme. I been using macs since os 5, way back.
I’m overcome with sadness when I realise this is 2014 and the world is still capable of such stupidity.
Funny how everyone is bashing on Russia, a country that at the very least still has some morals. We let ours go a long time ago and yea definitely see how it’s helping our country… *eye roll.
Hate Putin because admit it, people there are still people and doing pretty good. It’s the media here that is lying to you, and that is what our government hates.
agreed
This should surprise no one.