Russia Yanks iPhone Statue Over Cook's 'Call to Sodomy'

St. Petersburg not impressed with CEO's decision to come out
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 3, 2014 1:48 PM CST
Russia Yanks iPhone Statue Over Cook's 'Call to Sodomy'
In this 2013 file photo, a woman stands by a memorial to Steve Jobs at St. Petersburg National Research University. The iPhone memorial has been taken down after Tim Cook's announcement that he's gay.   (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky, FILE)

If you were still waiting for over-the-top reaction to Tim Cook's announcement last week that he is gay, we present you with Russia: Apparently outraged by the sexual orientation of the CEO of a California-based technology company, a construction company has taken down a six-foot statue of an iPhone erected on a St. Petersburg university campus as a memorial to Cook predecessor Steve Jobs, reports the AP.

The company, ZEFS, likens Cook's coming out to "a public call to sodomy," and said today that it yanked the statue because it violated Russian laws that protect minors from "homosexual propaganda." It's not the only backlash in St. Petersburg: A prominent anti-gay activist has also called for Cook to be banned from Russia on the grounds that, as Radio Free Europe puts it, "he could bring AIDS, Ebola, or gonorrhea into the country." (More Tim Cook stories.)

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