TALLINN, January 15, 2006 – Tarmo Kruusimägi, a member of the Tallinn City Council’s Committee on Consumers’ Rights and Protection of Children, and stage entertainer has appeared on a stage in a t-shirt with wording “I hate gays”, Delfi.ee reported.
He has had the t-shirt for couple of years, he said.
Commenting on the wording, he said there should be a balance in any sphere. If many people wear t-shirts in rainbow colours and express or advertise their tolerant attitude towards their ‘hobby’, he believes he has a right to express his position.
Answering a question whether a member of a city council will have problems fuelling hatred, Kruusimägi said that on a stage he is just an actor.
He said he has other t-shirts from previous years where he states he does not like communism.
The entertainer said it would be over the top if someone complained to the court or banned him from performance because he wore such t-shirt. “That would be quite an advertisement,” he said.
Kruusimägi went on to say that it would be amusing if “pederast-activists started pointing out what t-shirt I should wear on a stage, how many rings I should have in my ear or in my nose, or what lyrics I should have in my songs”.
At the same time he refused to call himself a homophobe – he said he does not fear homosexuals and he even has friends who know about his attitudes but do not discuss this subject with him. |