Interfax: Russia should get less aggressive towards sex minorities – senator

Federation Council file photo

(Interfax – June 28, 2015)

Deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee for Constitutional Legislation Konstantin Dobrynin has suggested that the American “don’t ask, don’t tell” principle be enshrined in the Russian law with respect to people of non-heterosexual orientation.

One may laugh at America or a tolerant Europe for as long as one likes; it should be admitted, however, that the world is global and it is only a matter of time – somewhere sooner, somewhere later – before the minorities obtain the equal rights they do not have at present, Dobrynin told Interfax.

“For Russia, it is important not to turn its back on the reality of our time and not to plunge into a barbate and ancient homophobia, but try and find the legal form that will strike a social balance on this subject between the conservative part of our society and all the rest. For a while, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ could become the optimal formula that could take place and actually work in our country without causing any aggression,” the senator said.

In his view, this principle could be legislated.

“The most important thing is to immediately reduce the aggression towards minorities because the people who are fighting them must understand that their wild fight causes counteraction: more homophobes, more fighters for gay rights; the harsher the persecution, the stronger the protection against it,” Dobrynin said.

In his view, only future will judge which path Russia will eventually embark upon, and only time will tell whether Russia’s former G8 partners or current BRICS ones, who legalized same-sex marriages, were right.

“But quasi-politicians overtly speculating on homophobia and doing legislative junk must be removed from the political field and our life, the sooner, the better. It is they, and not gays, who pose a direct and overt threat to Russia’s security, and it is they the state should fight against,” Dobrynin said.

The senator was commenting on yet another initiative by a member of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, Vitaly Milonov, who called for Facebook to be blocked in Russia. According to Milonov, the Facebook administration “has grossly violated the Russian laws by launching a function that enables users to paint their pictures into the colors of the LGBT flag.”

 

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