Vladimir Putin has unleashed a frightening wave of homophobia that even he cannot control He was later released without charge, but when he returned the next day, to show "that I would not be cowed by such pressure," he was promptly rearrested. This time, however, he would not be getting away with a slap on the wrist. It turned out Putin had signed the propaganda law a few hours earlier. I learnt I was formally being charged a week later," he said. A much-delayed court hearing eventually found him guilty on December 19, fining him 4000 roubles (£80) - the minimum punishment - and making him the third person after two other gay rights activists to be convicted of the new crime. But it is not the conviction he is worried about (he is appealing), so much as the insidious message the law has sent out to society about how sexual minorities can - and indeed should - be treated. The problem with that law is that it sends a signal that says gays are people you can fine, who you can insult, who you can maybe even beat up. He says he got his own taste of the semi-official homophobia when he was fired from his job at the country's state-owned bank a few weeks after his arrest, the head of the regional subsidiary leaving no doubt as to the reason for the move. "He made clear I could either campaign for gay rights or work there, but not both," Mr Isakov said. The law banning promoting homosexuality to under-18s has been defended by supporters, including Mr Putin, as a child-protection measure. We haven't banned anything, and we're not grabbing anyone off the streets. [Gays and lesbians] can be entirely at ease, but leave the kids alone please," Mr Putin said in his latest comments on the controversial law on Friday. But opponents say it is used to ban any possible public activity by gay and lesbian groups on the grounds that a child might see a rainbow flag. Nikolai Alexeyev, a prominent Russian gay rights activist and along with Mr Isakov one of only three people to be convicted under the law, says 70 to 80 applications for various public activities have been denied for such reasons in Moscow alone in the past three months. "We don't even have the right to fight discrimination," said Mr Isakov. And while Mr Putin may preach tolerance, a litany of viciously homophobic rhetoric from other public figures has left rights activists and Kremlinologists wondering if his flirtation with family values has unleashed a monster even he cannot control. The rising tide of anti-gay rhetoric reached a new nadir last month, when Ivan Okhlobystin, a popular actor and former Orthodox priest, effectively suggested a gay holocaust. I would shove them all [gay people] alive in the oven. It's Sodom and Gomorrah. I'm a believer and can't be indifferent to it, it's a live danger to my children.," he said. Earlier this month he made a public appeal to Mr Putin to reinstate the Soviet-era law criminalising homosexual relations, which was repealed in 1993. He was backed by one of the country's most senior clerics. The authorities made no move to charge Mr Okhlobystin for these outbursts under Russia's strict anti-extremism law, but he did land an advertising deal with a Moscow fashion label on the back of them. "After [the appeal to recriminalize homosexual relations] we decided this is our man," Ilya Yaroshenko, the owner of the Baon, told Russian media after the deal was announced on Tuesday. Okhlobystin is most consistent with our target audience, our brand values, family, Orthodoxy, which he is now fighting for. And he has even won implicit from the powerful Russian Orthodox Church, with a senior cleric suggesting a public referendum on the idea. We're a democracy, and the majority of our people, not some external force, must determine what we considered a criminal offence. Different societies at different times have treated same-sex relationships in different ways, but most commonly as a crime," Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the chief spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, said in an interview with the Izvestia daily. Let's ask people whether they are ready for this. On Friday Orthodox activists in St Petersburg were reported to be gathering signatures in support of just such a measure in the queue to visit holy relics on loan from Greece. The likelihood of such a regressive move is remote. Mr Putin himself has made clear he would never back such a move, and in a sign of unease at the top the most loyal Kremlin lawmakers have denounced the idea. Mr Alexeyev, who is scathing about Putin's pretence that the propaganda law has no impact on ordinary gay people's lives, called it politically impossible - it would, he points out, jeopardise Russia's membership of the council of Europe. Mr Isakov, however, is not so sure. I think we could see something like what is now happening in Nigeria. It is going to get worse. Especially after the Olympics," he said. But while they are divided over how much worse things can get, activists and ordinary gays who are prepared to speak out are almost unanimous about one thing - they feel like they are being made political scapegoats by a regime keen to distract attention from its own shortcomings. "The climate, the hostility, has got much worse [in the past six months]," said Anton Krasovsky, a television anchor who was fired after coming out on air in protest against the law last summer. And that's where all this comes from. In the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s the Jews were the minority who played that role. Now it is gays - and it is going to get worse as long as Putin remains in power.