Russian President Vladimir Putin , who a Pentagon think tank theorized may have Asperger’s syndrome, has been accused of possibly being secretly gay by a prominent U.S. political operative.
By analyzing Putin’s movements, a 2008 report just made public from the U.S. military apparently came up with Asperger’s syndrome — a condition on the autism spectrum — supposedly because his “neurological development was significantly interrupted in infancy.”
A Kremlin spokesman rejected the long-range diagnosis of Asperger’s, however, deeming it “stupid.”
A former KGB agent who enjoys near-dictatorial powers in Russia, Vladimir Putin has become a major player on the world stage for, among other things, annexing Crimea (and perhaps eventually all of Ukraine) and last year stopping Obama from bombing Syria, a military action that most of Congress and the American public also opposed.
Cultivating a macho image as an outdoorsman and martial artist, Putin has been the subject of unsubstantiated health rumors before. In an October report, he was supposedly suffering from pancreatic or spinal cancer , which was also denied by the Kremlin in Moscow.
In an appearance on the Fox News Channel (see clip below) yesterday, Democrat strategist and major Obama/Clinton supporter Bernard Whitman, who is said to be openly gay, offered this commentary about the Putin Asperger’s claim.
I don’t know if Putin has Asberger’s, autism, or he’s secretly gay, which some of my friends in Russia in the know have said; that would help to explain some of his virulent anti-gay attitudes. The fact is he’s a dangerous megalomaniac who subjugates his own people to avoid having to deal with his corrupt economy … the most important thing is that the guy cannot be trusted…”
The Putin regime is considered a foe of the LGBTQ community in part because of various instances of anti-gay legislation . In November, the gay-oriented magazine The Advocate named Putin its Person of the Year, apparently because it considers the Russian leader “the single greatest threat to LGBTs in the world in 2014.”
In July 2013, Vladimir Putin signed a law prohibiting gay couples in foreign countries where same-sex marriage is legal from adopting Russian children (presumably orphans in many instances). It also similarly ruled out any such adoptions by single persons or unmarried couples irrespective of sexual orientation in countries where same-sex marriage has been legalized.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvK_Bm7hdVk
Apart from whether or not Vladimir Putin carries Asperger’s syndrome, do you think it is all plausible that he is a closeted gay man?
[Image via Shutterstock]