By FRANCE 24 (text)
Russia’s lower house overwhelmingly approved a law on Tuesday banning gay “propaganda”, a measure rights groups say has already fuelled attacks on gay citizens as President Vladimir Putin pursues an increasingly conservative social agenda.
The law would forbid providing information on “non-traditional sexual relations” to minors and establish steep fines for violations (roughly $156 for an individual and $31,000 for a company).
The bill passed with 436 votes in the 450-seat Duma. One deputy abstained and no one voted against.
The bill still needs to be approved by the upper house and signed into law by Putin, but neither step is in doubt.
The new measure is the latest effort to protect traditional Russian values against Western liberalism, which the Kremlin and Russian Orthodox Church see as corrupting Russian youth and inciting protests against Putin’s rule.
“Traditional sexual relations are relations between a man and a woman, which ... are a condition for the preservation and development of the multi-ethnic Russian people,” lawmaker Yelena Mizulina told the chamber. “It is precisely these relations that need special protection by the state,” she said.
Critics of the bill, which amounts to a nation-wide version of laws that already exist in several cities, like St Petersburg, say it would in effect ban gay rights rallies and could be used to prosecute anyone voicing support for LGBT citizens.
LGBT activists attacked
As the lawmakers voted on Tuesday, hundreds of anti-gay demonstrators gathered outside the parliament building, chanting “Russia is not Sodom”, singing Orthodox Christian prayers, and hurling eggs at LGBT activists participating in a “kiss-in” nearby.
When one of the LGBT activists was thrown to the ground and kicked by a group of anti-gay demonstrators, police began arresting more than two dozen protesters (most of them gay)"
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