(Newsweek) When Conchita Wurst raised her microphone-shaped winner’s trophy at the Eurovision Song Contest in May, she smashed through a lavender ceiling. Boy George described her victory as “a vote for gay solidarity”. Lady Gaga tweeted that Wurst, “slayed with her beautiful vocals and message of freedom and equality”. Cher called her “fascinating”, adding that she deserves a better name and wig. “This is not shade,” she tweeted. “I respect and admire your resolve.”
Not everyone joined the chorus. Russian politicians interpreted the result as a sign of moral decay in the West. “This is the end of Europe,” railed Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the Liberal Democratic party of Russia. “It’s rotted away. There are no more men and women. There is just ‘it’.”
Valery Rashkin, the deputy leader of the Communist Party, demanded that Russia leave the frothy competition and establish a heterosexual alternative, tentatively called The Voice of Eurasia. “The last Eurovision results exhausted our patience,” he told the Interfax news agency. “We cannot tolerate this endless madness.” […]
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