Gay rights in Russia

The world has been shocked by Russia’s new law, which effectively bans any public actions by St. Petersburg’s gay community. Many Westerners just can not understand, how a city, which claims to be the “gates of Europe” of the world’s largest country could pass a law, which seems so much against the modern idea of human rights.

Nevertheless, on March 7^th 2012, the law was signed by the Governor of St. Petersburg, which means, there are only a couple of days left, until it will be being enforced. So, how could this happen? In this article, we will try to answer this question from a political and language perspective.

Russian politics have always (for at least 200 years) been characterized as “acting despite the pressure”. Russia has always aimed at being a powerful player, somewhat, reinforcing its own independence by ignoring foreign advice and pressure. This was especially true in the soviet times, when the country was constantly preparing itself for confrontations with the West. We are using this to explain, why the parliament of St. Petersburg and the governor ignored international pressure. From their point of view, Western powers, always eager to spread their political influence, have been using international interest groups to pressure Russia. Russia, in its terms, has reacted to pressure as it always has: by ignoring it.

The entire concept of human rights has almost failed in modern-day Russia. It has failed politically after the 1990’s, when the so-called liberals and democrats promoted what is now called “the stealing, crushing and selling of our great country”. Millions lost their jobs and were pushed into a decade of poverty and uncertainty, crime flourished, population decreased. Anyway, for the majority of modern Russians, words like “liberalism” and “democracy” sound more like curses.

Finally, the popular attitude to gay people is quite negative. Decriminalization of 1993 did little to improve the situation. In particular, the Russian criminal culture places gay people into the lowest social position imaginable. In male prisons, gays must not be allowed to share food with fellow inmates, sleep on beds on which others sleep. There is no way to change this status, so a gay person in the Russian criminal culture is doomed. People are forced into being gay for serious offences, including rape of women and children. It is worth mentioning, that criminal culture is very influential in the modern Russian society.

The last, but not the least is that in modern Russian, pederasty and homosexuality are translated with just one word. So, it is clear, why the majority of population do not see any difference.

The new law is going to be popular. Similar initiatives have been proposed in several regions of Russia, as well as a federal law proposal.