A politician in Kazakhstan has claimed “blood tests for degeneratism” can identify gay people while calling for homosexuality to be criminalized, describing it as a threat to national security.

Standing before a poster claiming “homosexuality is a threat to the nation,” Dauren Babamuratov, leader of the nationalist “Bolashak” movement, petitioned the government to ban so-called “gay propaganda” in the country, Tengri News reported.

Babamuratov urged a ban on gays from holding public offices, serving in the Kazakh army, and said it would be easily to identify gays through DNA testing and because they wear colored pants:

“We have stooped so low that LGBTs no longer hide their orientation. One can see a lot of people in the city’s malls and other public places – these are young people in colored pants. This means they no longer hide their orientation. “I think it is very easy to identify a gay person by his or her DNA. A blood test can show the presence of degeneratism in a person. Unfortunately, suppressing activities of the LGBT community in Kazakhstan is extremely difficult, because there is no law in our country prohibiting this type of activity, that is, the promotion of homosexuality.”

While homosexuality is not illegal in Kazakhstan, LGBTQ people in the county often face significant discrimination and harassment.

Beisenbayev has called for a reinstatement of the country’s anti-sodomy laws, overturned in 1998.