Regional deputies on Thursday submitted a draft law to the federal Russian parliament that would make “homosexual propaganda” to minors a punishable offense across Russia. The move comes in defiance of an international outcry over the approval by the regional parliament in Saint Petersburg of an identical law for Russia’s second city which rights groups say blatantly discriminates against gays. The regional parliament in Siberia’s Novosibirsk is behind the initial draft put to the State Duma of a federal law that adds “homosexual propaganda among minors” to Russia’s list of administrative offences. “Homosexual propaganda is widespread in modern Russia,” the Novosibirsk deputies explained in a memo published together with the draft. Such propaganda in media and rallies “shows homosexuality as a behavioural norm,” it says. “It is necessary to protect the next generation from the effects of homosexual propaganda,” it says, without listing any criteria for what exactly should be considered propaganda.
