ST. PETERSBURG — The anti-Western rhetoric that dominated Russia’s recent elections has a new focus, with gays targeted as symbols of Western permissiveness in a wave of laws being adopted across the country.

Here in St. Petersburg, a city that prides itself as the most European in Russia, the lawmaker behind a new local ban on gay “propaganda” has said that he is defending traditional Russian values against an onslaught from the West. Gay activists — two of whom were the first to go on trial this week on charges of violating the new law — counter that the rules will legitimize homophobic attitudes and aggression even as Europe and the United States move toward acceptance.

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