People will lose their human dignity without values enshrined in
Christianity and other world religions, without moral standards that
have taken millennia to take shape, President Vladimir Putin.
"We believe that it is natural and appropriate to defend those values.
Any minority deserves respect for its distinctive identity, but the
rights of the majority must not be questioned," Putin said during a
meeting of the Valdai discussion club.
He believes, that Russia can't move forward without cultural and
national self-determination. Otherwise the country won't be able to
respond to external or internal challenges, can't be successful in
global competition.
"Events that take place in the world represent one more serious
challenge to the Russian identity. There are foreign policy and moral
aspects to this. We have been able to see many Euro-Atlantic countries
effectively embark on a path of renouncing their roots, including
Christian values, which underlie Western civilization," Putin said.
"That involves the negation of moral principles and any traditional
identity - national, cultural, religious, or even sexual," he said.
"Policies are pursued that put large families and same-sex partnerships
in the same category, belief in God and belief in Satan. Excesses of
political correctness reach the point where there are serious
discussions on the registration of parties that have propaganda of
pedophilia as their objective. People in many European countries are
ashamed and afraid of speaking about their religion, holidays are
abolished or given other names, names that shyly conceal the nature of
those holidays, and aggressive attempts are made to force this model on
the rest of the world," Putin said.
"This is a direct path to degradation and primitiveness, to deep demographic and moral crises," he said.
"What can be a better indication of a moral crisis in human society than
its loss of the ability for self-reproduction?" Putin said.