Since Singh's death, civil-rights groups have expressed concern that Russian enclaves in such West Coast cities as Sacramento, Portland and Seattle have become spawning grounds for virulent anti-gay sentiment.
A recent Southern Poverty Law Center report said many of the region's most vocal Slavic activists are followers of an international anti-gay group called Watchmen on the Walls. Formed just a few years ago, the group has established a potent presence among Slavic evangelicals in the U.S. and abroad.
Using battle-tinged rhetoric, the Watchmen have called for evangelicals to step aggressively into the political realm to fight what they see as a gay agenda threatening the traditional family.
They held a convention in Sacramento -- attended by several dozen devotees -- just a few months before the Singh killing.
The founders include Alexey Ledyaev, pastor of New Generation Church -- a Latvian-based denomination with more than 200 satellite congregations, including one in Sacramento -- and Scott Lively, an anti-gay activist and attorney with California roots who wrote "The Pink Swastika," a book linking Nazi Germany's Third Reich to homosexuality.
Vlad Kusakin, the host of a Sacramento Russian-language radio show and publisher of a Slavic newspaper that circulates in several West Coast cities, has appeared at Watchmen conventions.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has added the Watchmen to its list of hate groups, which includes such organizations as the Aryan Nations and the Golden State Skinheads.
"The rationale is the extreme viciousness of the group's anti-gay propaganda," said Mark Potok, director of the center's Intelligence Project.
Lively said in an e-mail that Watchmen do not promote or condone violence and are being unfairly subjected to a "hate-themed smear campaign." As for gay people, he said, "The public sympathy they enjoy as a political movement cannot survive honest scrutiny of their lifestyle or agenda."
Shevchenko's trial is set for April 29. Michael Long, his attorney, said the facts don't warrant hate-crime charges. Vusik initially asked Singh and his friends to stop their sexually explicit dancing, the attorney said, but the Fijians refused and called the Russians "white trash."
"I'm sure if it had been two straight people doing simulated sexual acts, they would have felt the same way," Long said. "This wasn't about evangelical versus gay. The Russians just wanted a peaceful picnic, and the Fijians were being obnoxious."
