World News for Students of English

06-11-2014 15:00

A memorial to Apple founder Steve Jobs has been dismantled in the Russian city of St. Petersburg, after the man who succeeded him at the helm of the company, Tim Cook, came out as gay.

The two-metre high monument, in the shape of an iPhone, was erected outside a college last year by a Russian group of companies called ZEFS.

Citing the need to abide by a law combating “gay propaganda”, ZEFS said in a statement on Monday that the memorial had been removed on Friday, a day after Cook had announced he was gay.

The statement said, “The monument was taken down to abide to the Russian federal law protecting children from information promoting denial of traditional family values.”

Promoting “traditional values“, President Vladimir Putin last year signed a law prohibiting the spread of “gay propaganda” among minors.

Putin says there is no discrimination against gay people in Russia and the law was needed only to protect young people.

Difficult words: dismantle (take apart), helm (a high position of leadership), gay (when a man likes other men or a woman likes other women), erect (build), abide (act according to), promote (support), traditional values (an idea that how people used to live in the past is still the best way to live now), propaganda (when people tell you something false to make you think something), discrimination (when people do not treat other people fairly based on the race, religion, gender, age, or other qualities that make the people who they are).

Source: www.ondemandnews.com