Report: Russia Yanks Jobs Memorial After Cook Comes Out

There is some confusion of whether the statue's removal was due to homophobia, NSA spying, or repairs.

Russia is not taking Tim Cook's coming out announcement very well. In the country's latest protest of the Apple CEO's now-public sexual orientation, a giant iPhone statue erected in memory of Steve Jobs has been removed.

The Western European Financial Union (ZEFS), which installed the memorial early last year, has dismantled the interactive monumentbecause Cook is "promoting homosexuality."

As reported by the Ekho Moskvy news site, ZEFS disconnected the statue "pursuant to Russian federal law on the protection of children from information that promotes the denial of traditional family values."

The 6-foot-6-inch installation, which stood in the courtyard of the National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (ITMO) in St. Petersburg, was built to teach students about the life and work of Jobs, who passed away in 2011.

Tim Cook took over as Apple CEO several months before Jobs's death, and has thus far kept his personal life private despite running one of the most scrutinized companies in the world. Cook broke his silence last week, though, to announce that he is gay.

"I've come to realize that my desire for personal privacy has been holding me back from doing something more important," Cook wrote in an op-ed for Bloomberg.

"I don't consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I've benefited from the sacrifice of others," he continued. "So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it's worth the trade-off with my own privacy."

The news was not well-received by Vitaly Milonov, Deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg and notable homophobe, who quickly proclaimed that he wants a lifetime prohibition on Cook's entrance into Russia.

ZEFS has taken a similarly unsupportive approach, claiming that Cook "has publicly called for sodomy."

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Report: Russia Yanks Jobs Memorial After Cook Comes Out