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"In Russia there will be no 'parent 1' and 'parent 2'. As long as I am president there will be dad and mom," Russian leader Vladimir Putin proclaimed today. Nor will same-sex marriages ever be legalized, he said in chairing a meeting of the working group that studies the amendments in view of the reform of the Constitution.
Putin thus responded to the proposal of an ultraconservative deputy to include in the Constitution the traditional marriage between a man and a woman as the sole basis of the family. Olga Batalina lamented that only ten years ago nobody imagined that the words "father and mother" would be replaced by the concepts "parent number one and parent number two".
Putin's words have not surprised Russia . He has never questioned the conservative morality promoted by the Russian Orthodox Church, especially since he returned to the Kremlin in 2012 amid the greatest wave of protests the country had seen. Recently, Putin charged against "genderless and sterile" liberalism.
The Russian leader has always expressed categorically against the homosexual union and has promoted laws to prevent the LGBT population from expressing their concerns or their reinvindications in public. Even gay pride marches have been banned, on the grounds that it can be psychological and moral damage for minors. Technically, the measure not only affects homosexuals, but also targets anyone who defends homosexuality in public as an option as valid as heterosexuality .
The conservative turn of the Kremlin has been felt outside the borders of Russia. Moscow forced countries like Spain or Italy to include in the adoption agreements signed with Russia the condition that Russian orphans could not be adopted by homosexual couples , not even single people. Applicants without a partner who had passed the first stages of the process stayed at the doors.
But Putin does not want to stick to the ultraconservative doctrine beyond what is necessary. That is why it is unlikely to support the Russian constitution proclaiming that the family is the union of a man and a woman . The proposal seems doubtful, according to local media. He even referred to the families in which one of the parents is missing: "What if it is an incomplete family? Then what? Marriage is a union between a man and a woman and the family is a little different," Putin said.
Homosexuality was persecuted for most of the time that the USSR lasted. It ceased to be a crime in Russia in 1993. In large cities it is tolerated but you cannot flag it. The official government line conceives gays as a problem. "Homosexual marriages do not produce children ," Putin said on one occasion, always worried about the dwindling Russian population.
Gays, worse than before
The conservative deputy Piotr Tolstoy already asked a few days ago to add a point to the Constitution stating that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. "If it is fixed at the constitutional level, this will eliminate a series of questions that they try to ask us in the European Union," he said in reference to the frequent criticisms expressed from within the EU about Russian discrimination against gays and lesbians. But Pavel Krasheninnikov, president of the Duma committee that oversees the new wording of the Magna Carta, has already rejected the initiative as "unnecessary."
The Independent Social Research Center, an organization based in St. Petersburg, said violent crimes against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people had increased markedly . Activists link the increase in violence with Russian law of 2013 prohibiting "gay propaganda among minors." Also with anti-LGBT rhetoric on state television and politicians.
A jury in Moscow acquitted this month a man accused of killing Roman Yedalov, a 40-year-old gay man, last year. Security cameras captured the stab. His partner, Yevgeny Yefimov, who survived the attack, said the suspect had shouted homophobic insults . Jurors found Anton Berezhnyi not guilty of murder. He did not get rid of a minor charge of aggression, which carries a prison sentence of only two years. The "accused said the victim fell on the knife," denounced the spokesman of the LGBT group Stimul, Sergei Romanovsky. Now they fear that the constitution will also turn against them.
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