Children’s drawings seized in Russia over gay “propaganda”

MOSCOW – Police in Russia’s fourth-largest city of Yekaterinburg have seized children’s paintings over what they consider to be depictions of gay love.

Police said officers were dispatched Thursday to check a report in a government-friendly website about the drawings, and have seized 17 for examination.

The Ura.ru website claimed Wednesday that a high school drawing competition on the subject of tolerance featured several drawings which depicted same-sex couples. Russia passed a bill in 2013 outlawing the public display of what it described “gay propaganda.”

The website published what it said was a picture of one of the drawings which features silhouettes of what appears to same-sex couples. The headline to the drawing says “We are all unique. We don’t get to choose looks, race, (sexual) orientation.”