While pressure mounts over human rights, Russia’s Orthodox Church wants a referendum on homosexual acts.

As Russia gets ready to stage the Sochi Winter Olympics, the country is coming under attack for its human rights record, including the gay propaganda law introduced there in June 2013, which makes it illegal to “promote” same-sex relationships in front of minors. In response to pressure from Europe and the United States, Russia’s powerful Orthodox Church says it wants gay sex to be criminalised.

“There is no question that society should discuss this issue since we live in a democracy,” Church spokesman Vsevolod Chaplin (pictured) told the online edition of the pro-government Izvestia daily.

“For this reason, it is precisely the majority of our people and not some outside powers that should decide what should be a criminal offence and what should not.”

Chaplin, who has a weekly show on state TV, says he is “convinced that such sexual contacts should be completely excluded from the life of our society.”

“If we manage to do this through moral pressure, all the better. But if we need to revert to assistance from the law, then let us ask the people if they are ready for this,” he added.

Results from a study conducted last year by the independent Levada centre suggest that such a referendum would easily pass. Only one in five Russians believe that people were actually born gay. More than a third said homosexuality should be treated medically and 13 percent backed the idea of making it a crime.