Russia Tears Down Steve Jobs 'Memorial' After Tim Cook Comes Out

According to Reuters via NBC News, a St. Petersburg memorial built to honor Apple founder Steve Jobs has been taken down because his successor, Tim Cook, came out as gay publicly last week.

Erected by a Russian group of companies called ZEFS, the over 6-foot-high, iPhone-shaped monument was built outside a St. Petersburg technical college in January 2013. It was dismantled on Friday by the very group that had it put up in the first place.

ZEFS released a statement today claiming that they needed to abide by Russia's much reviled "gay propaganda" law. "In Russia, gay propaganda and other sexual perversions among minors are prohibited by law," said ZEFS. They noted that the memorial had been erected "in an area of direct access for young students and scholars." ZEFS had the memorial, which featured a touch screen that displayed information about Jobs and Apple, dismantled only a day after Cook came out.

"After Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly called for sodomy, the monument was taken down to abide to the Russian federal law protecting children from information promoting denial of traditional family values," reads ZEFS statement.

Fortune reports that another, dubious reason ostensibly given for the memorial's dismantling is that according to Edward Snowden: "Apple products transmits [sic] data about its users to the American secret services.

Apple has denied that there is way for the government to access your information without a court order from their products. "There is no back door," Cook told ABC News anchor David Muir in January. "The government doesn't have access to our servers. They would have to cart us out in a box for that."