Ban on Gay Propaganda: the view from Saint-Petersburg

The governor of Saint-Petersburg has recently signed an amendment to the local “Law on administrative violations” imposing financial penalties for promotion of homosexuality among people under 18. Frankly speaking, for us as for residents of this city it would be much more important if local parliament discusses more pressing issues, such as the situation in public health, taxation of small business or demolition of historic buildings in the city center. Anyway, let us try to reason out what this much talked-of legislation act means.

Turning to the wording of the law, public activity aimed at propaganda of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality among juveniles subjects to the penalties. Propaganda is defined here as “purposeful activity and uncontrolled public distribution of information able to harm health, moral and spiritual development of juveniles, including forming a distorted view about social equivalence of traditional and nontraditional marriage”.

Of course, the main intention of the law creators was to protect children and teenagers who could be sexually affected, however in practice they devalued the original idea by making the amendment very raw and very ambiguous. The notion “propaganda” itself is determined in rather an abstract way, and it is not quite clear what kind of actions actually fall into this term (leave alone the fact that public response which the law has already caused creates a hundredfold stronger “propaganda” than any actions which the law forbids had created within years).

Anyway, what is unambiguous here is the fact that the amendment doesn’t prohibit anyone to be a gay or a lesbian (or to have any other sexual orientation), as it may probably appear and as it is depicted in some European mass media. And also the fact is that the law doesn’t influence the life of sexual minorities in general. For example, there are several gay-friendly places in Saint-Petersburg and a big gay club in the city center, where one could, can and will be able to go any time if one wants.

Why did the amendment pass?

According to the results of the numerous polls conducted in Russia, more than 50% of Russians are not tolerant to homosexuals. The recent poll which was conducted in fourty-three federal units of the Russian Federation in June, 2011 showed that 61% of the citizens of our country were against gay pride. What is the background of such results?

Every society has its own traditions and moral values that are shaped through the centuries of its history. In Russia, “classical” heterosexual family has always been one of the pillars of our culture. The fact is that if gay people kiss openly in our country, people around in most cases do not understand it, and it may cause negative (and even aggressive) reaction from their side. Just imagine, if for the vast majority of the Russian citizens all members of their families, of the families of their parents and grandparents, and all their friends have been heterosexuals with no exceptions, no wonder that they think in this way! And you cannot judge people for that. Let’s just accept that this situation exists, like we accept other social phenomena.

On the other hand, let’s take a look at the other countries. One of the presidential candidates from the Republican Party in the U.S. (M. Bachmann) suggests that homosexuality can be cured (!) and talks about therapy aimed at turning gays straight. Have a look at the videos of gay prides in Baltic countries like Latvia or Lithuania, which are EU members since 2004. A few hundreds of people trying to march under protection of thousands of police officers. And the majority of the local people also does not support these parades.  So why don’t LGBT-activists  ban visiting Riga, for example?

What to do?

The easiest thing is to put a tag like: “you’re gay, you cannot talk about it”. On the other hand, it is also very easy to label some people or even some countries like: “you are homophobic, you are going backward, you are intolerant and undemocratic.”  Both are dead ends.

In our opinion, if we want to have a society more tolerant to sexual minorities, it cannot be reached by tooth-and-nail inculcating of traditions alien to it, because in fact it causes inverse effect only. We think that the right way is to take a constructive approach: to discuss openly the problems of social inclusion of sexual and other minorities, to increase social awareness of children and teenagers, and to breed respect to other people’s personalities, their rights, their views and their preferences in private life.

In conclusion we would like note that Saint-Petersburg is a charming city with rich culture and friendly people, a city that gives unbelievable impressions to everyone who comes here. And we are convinced that there is no law that can change it.

Written by Sergei Snarskiy, Anna Toropova, and Vladislav Leshchinskiy, AEGEE Sankt-Peterburg