This Wednesday, Saint Petersburg's anti-gay bill passed its third and final reading at Saint Petersburg's Legislative Assembly, with 29 votes for it and only 5 against it, and once the Governor Georgy Poltavchenko signs it, the bill will be law.
According to the law is illegal to spread information “harmful to the health and moral and spiritual development of minors, including the formation within them of a distorted idea of the social balance between traditional and nontraditional married relationships”. But in reality the goals are different from those declared as the law makes it illegal to speak openly about being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, without running the risk of a hefty fine - $17,000, therefore silencing an entire part of Russia's population and spreading homophobic sentiments.
The Governor Poltavchenko has vowed to bring a similar initiative to the federal State Duma Parliament for a nationwide adoption. Legislatures such as Archangelsk and Ryazan have passed similar laws and others are expected to follow suite. Kochetkov, head of the Russian LGBT network, believes that the goal behind this bill was to draw conservatives to Vladimir Putin's party United Russia, and then to Putin himself as a presidential candidate, and as we know Putin made anti-Americanism the main point of his presidential campaign. The law's principal author, V. Milanov, has said that this bill is a mark of "Russia's moral sovereignty". The passing of the bill shows that Russia is once again sliding towards totalitarianism, as this bill has an echo of a Soviet-era law that punished same-sex relationships between which was repealed in 1993.
Saint Petersburg should expect a blow to their touristic economy, once the bill is signed, as people have no desire to visit a country where they may face some outrageous fines just for being themselves.
See also: A Bleak Future for LGBT rights in Russia?
See also: A Bleak Future for LGBT rights in Russia?
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