Now you know why there is not russian vodkas in gay bars.
On June 30 this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin
signed into law a bill banning the "propaganda of nontraditional
sexual relations to minors," thus opening a new, dark chapter in
the history of gay rights in Russia. The law caps a period of
ferocious activities by the Russian government aimed at limiting
the rights of the country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,
and intersex people.
The violations of fundamental, constitutionally protected rights of
Russia’s gay citizens have included multiple
bans on gay pride parades in Moscow and other cities,
hefty fines to gay rights groups accused of acting as a
“foreign agent,” denial of registration
to nongovernmental organizations, and regional
laws banning the propaganda of homosexuality to minors, which
served as a basis for the federal law enacted by Mr. Putin and
unanimously passed by the State Duma. Against this
backdrop, violent attacks on gays or
“suspect gays” are becoming commonplace.
The state-sponsored initiatives relied on ludicrous assumptions.
For example, the regional bans on propaganda of homosexuality
equated same-sex relations with pedophilia even though the former
has been legal since 1993 and the latter is, of course, a serious
crime. The court decision denying registration to Sochi Pride House
states that “propaganda of nontraditional sexual orientation” is a
direct threat to Russian society, while calling attempts to
confront homophobia “extremist” because they inherently “incite
social and religious hatred.” Essentially, the court ruled that
gays incite hatred toward themselves and should be “protected” from
doing so. The court went on to argue that such extremist activities
present a threat to “Russia’s sovereignty and territorial
integrity.” The Russian government uses these flawed arguments when
it defends its discriminatory ways to an international audience.
Russian diplomats are fond of saying that discrimination does not
exist in Russia because the country’s constitution forbids it. Some
logic!
Russia’s courts and diplomats — and President Putin — cannot be
trusted to explain the status of gay rights in the country, but the
European Court of Human Rights can. In April 2011, the Strasbourg
court fined Russia for violating articles 11, 13, and 14 of the
European Convention by banning 164 pride events and marches between
2006 and 2008. The unanimous decision in Alekseyev v.
Russia came into force after the Russian government lost
its appeal in Strasbourg, yet although the Kremlin paid the fine,
they continued to ban pride rallies. In May 2012, a district court
in Moscow issued a ruling banning such events in the city until May
2112. That’s Russia’s approach: pay the fine, admit nothing, and
make things worse.
The cornerstone of Mr. Putin’s “War on Gays,” however,
is the vaguely defined and definitively antigay Article 6.21 of the
Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses, which
allows the government to fine individuals accused of the propaganda
of nontraditional sexual relations amongst minors. The federal ban
“builds on the success” of regional laws on “propaganda of
homosexualism to minors,” passed in 10 regions since 2006. We have
yet to see an example of the federal law in action, though we came
pretty close when four Dutch citizens were briefly
detained in the northern city of Murmansk in July.
Regional laws were used several times to fine gay rights
activists.
Here is what Article 6.21 actually says:
Propaganda is the act of distributing information among minors
that 1) is aimed at the creating nontraditional sexual attitudes,
2) makes nontraditional sexual relations attractive, 3) equates the
social value of traditional and nontraditional sexual relations, or
4) creates an interest in nontraditional sexual
relations.
If you’re Russian. Individuals engaging in
such propaganda can be fined 4,000 to 5,000 rubles (120-150 USD),
public officials are subject to fines of 40,000 to 50,000 rubles
(1,200-1,500 USD), and registered organizations can be either fined
(800,000-1,000,000 rubles or 24,000-30,000 USD) or sanctioned to
stop operations for 90 days. If you engage in the said propaganda
in the media or on the internet, the sliding scale of fines shifts:
for individuals, 50,000 to 100,000 rubles; for public officials,
100,000 to 200,000 rubles, and for organizations, from one million
rubles or a 90-day suspension.
If you’re an alien. Foreign citizens or
stateless persons engaging in propaganda are subject to a fine of
4,000 to 5,000 rubles, or they can be deported from the Russian
Federation and/or serve 15 days in jail. If a foreigner uses the
media or the internet to engage in propaganda, the fines increase
to 50,000-100,000 rubles or a 15-day detention with subsequent
deportation from Russia.
Huh? What?
The law passed by the Duma is so ambiguous for a reason. Without a
legal definition of ‘propaganda’ or ‘nontraditional sexual
relations’ — key operative words in Article 6.21 — we are not
getting a clear picture of how the authorities will use it.
Ironically, the best arguments against the adoption of this the
antigay legislation come from none other than the Russian
government. In 2004 and 2006, the government resisted attempts to
introduce similarly ambiguous federal bans on “the propaganda of
homosexuality.”
On February 20, 2006, then-Deputy Prime Minister Alexander
Zhukov (currently serving as a Deputy Speaker of the State Duma and
the President of Russia's Olympic Committee), submitted an official
recall to a tabled antigay bill, arguing that the legislation
contradicted Russia's criminal code that doesn’t allow to
criminalize the propaganda of noncriminal behavior, contains “a row
of mistakes and judicial-technical inexactitudes,” and relies on
definitions that do not allow to clearly formulate corpus
delicti. The May 20, 2004, rebuttal from Mr. Zhukov was
even more forthcoming, pointing out that the bill “contradicts
article 29 of the Russian Constitution, as well as articles 8, 10,
and 14 of the European Convention on human rights.”
I couldn’t put it better than Zhukov. Unfortunately, his
resistance to the anti-gay bills of 2004 & 2006 came at a time
when the Kremlin cared about Russia’s international reputation. Now
it appears to care only about nontraditional sex.