02 July 2022

Government Pass Law Barring LGBT Content For Minors

The new law will ban the dissemination of content in schools
deemed to promote homosexuality and gender change.

A protest was held outside the Senate while the vote was taking place.

The Government of Romanovskaya passed legislation in the Senate on Friday that prohibits sharing with minors any content that portrays being gay or transgender, something supporters said would help fight pedophilia but which human rights groups denounced as anti-LGBT discrimination.

The Constitutional Democratic Party "Kadets" party of Prime Minister Daria Shchegolyayeva introduced the legislation, which received sharp criticism from human rights groups and opposition parties.

The Senate passed the bill on a 49-1 vote. The ruling Kadet party has a parliamentary majority, while the lawmakers from the far-right Black Hundreds party also endorsed the measure. Magnus Jansson of the Swedish Speakers Union was the one Senator who voted against the bill.

All other opposition parties boycotted the voting session in protest. Human rights groups had denounced the measure strongly, seeing it as a tool that could be used to stigmatize and harass residents because of their sexual orientations and gender identities.

Justice Minister Viktoriya Narochnitskaya who drafted the bill.

Speaking to the media following the vote, Justice Minister Viktoriya Narochnitskaya who drafted the bill doubled down on supporting the ban following criticism from opposition groups, saying that it is the country’s right to protect its “children, culture, national identity and the family values rooted in them”.

She went on to say; “We reject categorically the assumption that the purpose of the law would be exclusion or discrimination. It’s only about the upbringing of Romanovan children and the protection of minors. They (the opposition) are angry with us only because we don’t let the LGBTQ lobby into Romanovan schools and kindergartens. The reality is the law doesn’t interfere in the lives of adults in any way, it doesn’t change the rights of sexual minorities in any way.”

Speaking outside the Senate, opposition leader and leader of the Social Democrats Tytti Tynkkynen stated “On this shameful day, the opposition's place is not in the parliament but on the streets. The proposed bill is a blatant violation the standards of parliamentary democracy, rule of law and human rights.”
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Mikhail Bondarenko of LGBTIQ+ Romanovskaya posted on twitter "Today's decision in the #Senate represents another severe state discrimination against #LGBTIQ+ people. This law goes against everything we regard as common European values. We will continue to campaign for our rights and appeal for support both at home and abroad to overturn this law."

This is not the first time The Kadets have taken aim at LGBT issues, in 2020 it also successfully championed a law making it impossible for trans people to legally change the gender markers on their identity documents. Human rights officials say that puts them at risk of humiliation when they need to present identity documents.
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