Russia Yanks iPhone Statue Over Cook's 'Call to Sodomy'

If you were still waiting for over-the-top reaction to Tim Cook's announcement last week that he is gay, we present you with Russia: Apparently outraged by the sexual orientation of the CEO of a California-based technology company, a construction company has taken down a six-foot statue of an iPhone erected on a St. Petersburg university campus as a memorial to Cook predecessor Steve Jobs, reports the AP.

The company, ZEFS, likens Cook's coming out to "a public call to sodomy," and said today that it yanked the statue because it violated Russian laws that protect minors from "homosexual propaganda." It's not the only backlash in St. Petersburg: A prominent anti-gay activist has also called for Cook to be banned from Russia on the grounds that, as Radio Free Europe puts it, "he could bring AIDS, Ebola, or gonorrhea into the country." (More Tim Cook stories.)