Under the proposed law changes, any event or conduct that is considered an attempt to promote homosexuality can be punished with a fine.
Published on 11 Jul 202211 Jul 2022
Russian lawmakers have proposed extending the ban on the promotion of “non-traditional” sexual relations among children to now including adults as well, say senior lawmakers.
Russia’s existing “gay propaganda” law, passed in 2013, has worked to stop gay pride marches and detain LGBTQ rights activists.
Under the proposed changes to the law, any event or conduct that is considered an attempt to promote homosexuality can be punished with a fine.
Authorities state that they defend morality in the face of what they argue are non-Russian liberal values that are promoted by the West. Human rights activists stated that the law was generally applied to intimidate the Russian LGBTQ community.
“We propose generally to extend the ban on such propaganda regardless of the age of the audience (offline, in the media, on the internet, social networks and online cinemas),” said the head of the State Duma information committee, Alexander Khinshtein, afterwards. on the Telegram social media channel and Monday.
Russian parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said last week that since Russia has been out of the European Council of Human Rights watchdog after the invasion of Ukraine, it will now be able to ban the promotion of “non-traditional values”.
“The demand to legalize same-sex marriage in Russia is a thing of the past,” said Volodin.
“Efforts to impose alien values on our society have failed.”
Homosexuality was a criminal offense in Russia until 1993 and was classified as a mental illness until 1999.
President Vladimir Putin has united himself with the Orthodox Church – which rejects equal relations – and has made social conservatism part of the narrative of the Russian political and cultural resurgence that is now also working to help the Ukrainian invasion.
The new constitution enacted in 2020 that extends the boundaries of the presidency also establishes marriage exclusively as uniting men and women.
In the ranking of Europe’s most LGBTQ friendly nations in this year’s “Rainbow Europe” index compiled by ILGA-Europe, Russia came third from last.
