On Thursday, Russian legislators agreed to toughen the country’s 2013 law against ‘gay propaganda’, prohibiting all Russians from furthering or praising homosexual relationships or publicly implying that they are ‘normal’.
According to the reports, Moscow’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, unanimously approved amendments to strengthen the law against ‘propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations’, making such propaganda illegal among Russians of all ages. The first version of the law, passed in 2013, prohibited propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships among minors. However, the amendment aims at expanding the law to include those aged 18 and above.
“Our bill is not an act of censorship. We are only saying that propaganda, that is, positive promotion, praise, saying that this is normal, and maybe even better than traditional relations, should be banned,” said the head of the State Duma’s Information Policy Committee, Alexander Khinshtein during the parliament session. However, the proposed change has to be approved by Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, and signed into law by Russian President Vladimir Putin, to take effect.
The bill makes ‘propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships’ a crime punishable by a fine of up to 400,000 rubles ($6,500) for individuals and up to 5 million rubles ($81,400) for legal entities. According to the reports, foreigners who violate the law could face up to 15 days in jail or deportation. On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin happened to slam Western culture. “The West can do whatever they want with gay parades but shouldn’t dictate the same rules for Russia”, he said.
Earlier in the year 2017, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia’s ‘gay propaganda law’ is discriminatory, promotes homophobia and violates the European Convention on Human Rights. “The law serves no legitimate public interest”, the Court had said. It had further rejected suggestions that public debate on LGBT matters could persuade children to become homosexual, or that it threatened public morals.
“Above all, by adopting such laws the court found that the authorities had reinforced stigma and prejudice and encouraged homophobia, which was incompatible with the values of equality, pluralism and tolerance of a democratic society”, the court document read further.
Reportedly, the newly introduced provisions are aimed at prohibiting ‘gay propaganda’ for all Russians, not just minors, in advertisements, the internet, media, literature and also in cinema. The amendments also seek to prohibit the ‘denial of family values’ and propaganda that can ’cause minors to desire to change their sex’.