Melbourne pressured re Russian anti-gay laws

I didn't know, but Melbourne (here in Australia) has a sister city status with St Petersburg in Russia. Being as Melbourne is one of the most cosmopolitan and diverse cities in the world, there is now pressure on the Lord Mayor to ditch the sister sister status citing the current laws in St Petersburg that ban gay "propaganda". These are similar laws that Russia is considering nationally.

LORD mayor Robert Doyle has requested an urgent meeting with Russia's ambassador and a briefing from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to discuss new anti-gay laws in St Petersburg. 

The move follows a petition by Carl Katter, half-brother of federal MP Bob Katter, to have Melbourne City Council dump its sister-city relationship with St Petersburg because he said the Russian city had enacted ''horrific'' anti-gay laws. 

More than 4800 people have signed the petition at Change.org. 

The Russian city has introduced broad laws banning ''homosexual propaganda''. 

''It is referred to as the gay propaganda law, but it is all-encompassing,'' said Mr Katter, a campaigner for marriage equality. 

''Melbourne is one of the most progressive cities of the world … and our mayor and council should be proud of that and stand up to such blatant homophobia,'' Mr Katter said. more

I wonder if the homophobic zealots in Russia would have ever envisaged the reaction they would get from overseas with these new gay laws? Now we have a city on the other side of the world which wants to ditch it's ties because of these laws.