How US Evangelicals Fueled the Rise of Russia’s Anti-Gay Right

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/world/us-evangelicals-fueled-rise-russias-pro-family-right



his past June, the Russian Parliament passed an anti-gay law that came as a surprise to much of the rest of the world. The statute, an amendment to the country’s Code of Administrative Offenses, bans “propaganda” regarding “nontraditional sexual relations among minors.” (In earlier versions of the bill, it was simply referred to as “homosexual propaganda.”) The bill’s language is so vague that it could include just about any kind of gay rights advocacy, from newspaper editorials and advertisements to public information campaigns and demonstrations. Among the penalties: fines of up to 5,000 rubles for an individual and 1 million rubles for a media organization or other legal entity. (A few days later, a bill banning the adoption of Russian children by same-sex couples in countries that recognize gay marriage was also passed.) In November, the editor of a newspaper in the far eastern city of Khabarovsk was charged under the new law after quoting an LGBT activist saying, “My entire existence is credible proof of the normality of homosexuality.”

Though it sparked worldwide condemnation at a moment when Russia is poised to host the Sochi Olympics, the bill in effect codified existing social policy. Several regions, including St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk, had already passed similar laws; gay rights demonstrations have been routinely banned; and LGBT activists have lived for years in a climate of fear, enduring beatings, arrests and harassment.

The anti-gay measure is the product of a growing conservative movement in Russia spearheaded by the Orthodox Church and sympathetic lawmakers. Its goals are not only to criminalize homosexuality, but to limit access to abortion and reproductive healthcare and to aggressively promote the “traditional family” through state subsidies and other benefits. In 2011, the parliament passed a law restricting abortion access that pro-choice activists regard as the first volley in an effort to ban the procedure altogether. Clinics were required to list the potential negative side effects of an abortion—like the warning on a pack of cigarettes—in any advertisements. More recently, a bill was passed prohibiting doctors’ offices or health clinics from advertising that they perform abortions at all. Yelena Mizulina, head of the Duma’s Committee on Family, Women and Children’s Affairs, which has formulated much of the new legislation, has said her primary task in the upcoming session will be to further restrict access to abortion and limit the availability of emergency contraception. Meanwhile, numerous think tanks, advocacy groups and charitable organizations with close ties to the Kremlin have taken up the cause.

* * *

This rising Russian social conservative movement frequently invokes the argument that pro-gay and women’s rights groups are puppets of the West, which is seeking to undermine Russian autonomy and interfere in the country’s internal affairs. At an annual meeting of journalists and academics presided over by Vladimir Putin in Valdai in September, the Russian president said that European countries had strayed from their roots by legalizing gay marriage. He urged Russians to embrace the conservative values of the Orthodox Church and other traditional religions and issued a warning to those who might want to challenge those values. “Russia’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity are unconditional—these are red lines no one is allowed to cross,” he declared.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

1. I'm afraid I find this deeply unpersuasive.

"Sympathise with"? Sure.

"Materially supports", even? Yes, slightly.

"Fuelled"? No, I think that's probably just an attempt to rationalise a subconscious desire to make everything wrong with the world the fault of the American right. Russian conservatism is fuelled from inside Russia, not from the US.

[pampango]

2. "Putin: “Russia’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity are unconditional ..."

The irony is that it is the new conservative vanguard—anti-gay, anti-abortion and pro–“traditional family”—that has most successfully cultivated the West’s financial and institutional support. Scott Lively, an extreme anti-gay campaigner, all but took credit for the new law, calling it “one of the proudest achievements of my career,” ..."

Another Putin quote:

"European countries had strayed from their roots by legalizing gay marriage. He urged Russians to embrace the conservative values of the Orthodox Church and other traditional religions and issued a warning to those who might want to challenge those values."

Clearly, the church’s efforts are beginning to pay off within the country, while Russia has also emerged as a leader in the international “pro-family” movement.

The anti-choice lobby in Russia has been winning slow but steady change in the laws governing access to abortion. In the early 1990s, there was strong federal support for family planning services in Russia, and hundreds of clinics providing free reproductive healthcare were established.

[dipsydoodle]

3. That must've happened sometime back in the past then

wellprior to the federal law being passed last July. Most of the regions already had the same law in place which helped explain why the vote in the Duma carried 294 :1......in keeping with laws they passed themselves in their own regions.

[Heidi]

4. Kick, kick, kick!!!

And: Mornin', dah-ling!

[xchrom]

5. Heidi!!! Kiss, Kiss Dah-link!

i'm ready for the day...

[Heidi]

6. You're as fetching as ever,

even in your unmentionables!

[xchrom]

7. never go out without Fabulous Unmentionables

wisdom my mother never gave me....