Parliamentarianism against Satanism – Newspaper Kommersant No. 193 (7394) of 10/18/2022

On Monday, the State Duma held parliamentary hearings on legislative initiatives to completely ban information in Russia that promotes non-traditional sexual relations. They were attended by deputies, senators, government representatives, public and religious figures. None of those present stood up for non-traditional values ​​and their bearers, on the contrary, everyone agreed that such propaganda is dangerous, especially in the conditions of a special military operation in Ukraine. Politicians stressed that LGBT propaganda is a tool of the “collective West” in a hybrid war against Russia. And the religious leaders perceived the appearance of the long-awaited legislative initiative as “a victory in the fight against the evil one.”

In July, a group of deputies from the opposition headed by Nina Ostanina (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) contributed submitted to the State Duma a draft law on the introduction of a complete ban on the dissemination in the media and the Internet of information that “denies family values ​​and promotes non-traditional sexual relations”. The authors also proposed not to issue distribution certificates for films containing such information. At the same time, the head of the information policy committee, Alexander Khinshtein (United Russia), together with his colleagues on the committee, developed his own package of amendments on the same topic, promising to submit it to the Duma only after a wide public discussion. According to this draft, citizens will have to pay a fine of 50,000 to 400,000 rubles for propaganda of LGBT people, officials – from 100,000 to 800,000 rubles. Legal entities will be fined from 800,000 to 5 million rubles. or suspension of activities for up to 90 days.

Substantiating the particular relevance of the topic of the hearings, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin referred to a recent poll by VTsIOM. According to these data, the proportion of citizens who said that they had encountered LGBT propaganda has doubled over the past ten years: in 2012, 6% of respondents said this, and in 2022 – already 12%.

Alexander Khinshtein assured those present that with the start of the special operation in Ukraine, the topic of the ban on LGBT propaganda “not only did not recede into the background, but, on the contrary, received a new sound.”

And he explained his thought: “Obviously, our confrontation with the West is largely of a civilizational nature, because Russia is an outpost for the protection and preservation of traditional values.” According to United Russia, a real LGBT revolution is taking place in the West, gays, bisexuals and transgenders occupy the highest government positions, and propaganda of non-traditional relationships has firmly established itself in advertising and is becoming the norm in children’s fairy tales. As an example, he cited the fairy tale “The Prince and the Knight” and such characters as the Snow Queen-lesbian, the dark-skinned Snow White and the “gender-fluid deer”. Even in the seemingly harmless tale about Peppa Pig, a bear appears, raised by two mothers, Mr. Khinshtein was indignant. “LGBT is today an instrument of a hybrid war, and in this war we must protect our society,” the deputy said.

He said that his committee began work on a package of bills against LGBT propaganda back in the spring and prepared to amend five laws. Now the law prohibits such propaganda only among minors, and deputies propose to extend this ban to all citizens, regardless of age, and at the same time to ban the promotion of pedophilia and gender reassignment on the Internet, the media, books, cinema and advertising.

Speaking about how to distinguish propaganda from a purely fictional narrative, United Russia recalled Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita: “There is no propaganda of pedophilia here, because not a single person who has read this book wants to repeat the fate of its hero.”

Alexander Khinshtein also called on the deputies of all factions, and first of all Nina Ostanina, to join his initiative. Ms. Ostanina, who spoke next, had nothing against the association: “Our bill defines non-traditional relations, and Alexander Evseevich (Khinshtein.— “b”) offers punishment.

The package of amendments was unanimously supported by representatives of the Prosecutor General’s Office, Roskomnadzor, the Ministry of Culture and Religious Confessions, invited to the hearings.

So, the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church, Archpriest Andrei Tkachev, told the audience that “sin is not a private matter” and the sinner “carries the stench of his decay far beyond his bedroom.” He called the deputies’ initiatives “a victory in the ongoing spiritual war against the evil one and a protective barrier so that a person is not empty and dirty.” And the singer Olga Kormukhina admitted that she came to the Duma to “testify our position before God.” According to her, only those who “did not flinch in the face of the world’s evil, which our president described as undisguised Satanism,” can determine moral criteria.

Chairman of the Presidential Council for Human Rights Valery Fadeev came from the other side, recalling that, according to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, no ideology can be recognized as a state one. “What we are dealing with is ideology, it is a tool for “opening up” other countries. Because it is argued that this is the only correct progressive ideology, everything else is archaic, a regression that must be fought,” the main Kremlin human rights activist explained.

Writer Yuri Polyakov suggested going beyond the topic under consideration and shared his suspicions about the existence of “a mechanism for promoting works of art or simulacra that contain anti-Russian sentiments.”

He came to this conclusion due to the fact that almost all the winners of the national literary award “Big Book” “actively or passively opposed the special military operation or went abroad with curses.”

The leader of the party “Fair Russia – For the Truth” Sergei Mironov proposed to toughen the proposals of the committee on information policy and introduce criminal liability for promoting non-traditional relations among minors. And the chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party, Leonid Slutsky, shared his memories of his work in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, talking about his acquaintance with a Belgian senator, a transgender woman who “later became a lesbian.” “Why did you have to change gender?” the Liberal Democrat was sincerely perplexed.

President of the Chechen Academy of Sciences Dzhambulat Umarov said that the head of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, reacted briefly to the emergence of a new initiative: “Finally!”. According to Mr. Umarov himself, “sodomy is the core of Satanism, against which our brothers and sons are now dying on Ukrainian soil.” “Accept this law and save our homeland – Russia!” – the scientist appealed to the deputies.

After several more public figures spoke out in favor of a ban on LGBT propaganda and made proposals on how to make it even tougher, Vyacheslav Volodin summed up the discussion. He announced that within a week a working group led by Vice Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy (United Russia) would finalize the package of amendments, after which it would become inter-factional. The speaker also agreed to Alexander Khinshtein’s proposal to join the group of authors. The State Duma can promptly consider these documents in the first reading immediately after they are submitted, and their final adoption is expected in November.

Ksenia Veretennikova