A Kazakh politician has claimed that a blood test for “degeneratism” could be used to identify gay people.

Dauren Babamuratov, leader of the country’s nationalistic Bolashak (‘Future’) party made the claims at a press conference in Almaty on September 11. He called on the government to ban gay “propaganda” and prohibit LGBT people from holding public offices and serving in the Kazakh army, reports Tengri News.

Babamuratov cited a recent advertisement for a gay club which featured two historical figures – Russian poet Alexander Pushkin and Kazakh composer Kurmangazy Sagyrbayuly (below) – in a passionate embrace as an example of gay propaganda “seeping” into the into the country’s media.

“We have stooped so low that LGBTs no longer hide their orientation,” he told reporters. “One can see a lot of people in the city’s malls and other public places — these are young people in coloured pants. This means they no longer hide their (sexual) orientation. I think it is very easy to identify a gay person by his or her DNA.

“A blood test can show the presence of degeneratism in a person,” he added.

“Unfortunately, suppressing activities of the LGBT community in Kazakhstan is extremely difficult, because there is no law in our country prohibiting this type of activity, that is, the promotion of homosexuality,” he concluded.

Local politicians and the Secretary of the People’s Communist Party came out  in support of Bolashak’s calls for the criminalisation of homosexuality, in what many international commentators have deemed an ‘imitation’ of Russia’s “gay propaganda” laws.