It’s happened. A Russian lawmaker introduced a bill in the lower house of the Duma that would deny LGBT parents the right to be parents. It adds sexual orientation to alcoholism, drug use, and abuse as reasons for taking away custody of children. The bill cites a widely discredited study of LGBT parents by University of Texas sociology professor Mark Regnerus as support for its position.
I wrote yesterday about a journalist and lesbian mom in Russia who is leaving the country because she fears the new anti-gay laws that could take her children away from her. She’s not the only one. Here are more stories of gay and lesbian parents and their struggles under the new laws.
Russian American journalist and lesbian mom Masha Gessen is leaving her Russian home for the U.S., she told the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper. She fears the harsh new laws against “homosexual propaganda” put her family at risk, especially given her activism and visibility.
On Friday, I mentioned Britney Simpson, one half of the 2013 U.S. Junior Pairs Champion figure skating team, who has two moms. I said it would be great to see both her and her skating partner’s parents in the audience if the pair makes the 2014 Winter Olympics—but forgot that the Games will be held in Russia. Russia’s increasingly harsh anti-gay laws cast Simpson’s moms’ attendance in a very different light.
An LGBT organization in Saint Petersburg, Russia has launched a poster project about lesbian families—and it’s worth a look. The posters, produced by the Rainbow Parents project of the LGBT group Coming Out, with the help of the Heinrich-Böll foundation in Moscow, will be distributed among community organizations in St. Petersburg and the regional offices of the Russian LGBT Network–and anywhere else people wish to hang them.
What a week in LGBT political news! Here are some of the highlights: National News The U.S. Senate approved the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. It now goes to President Obama, who has said he will sign it. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a series of
Here is the third interview in this phase of the Family Voices series. This time around, I am teaming up with Julieta of Ju, An y el Perro Activista to extend the series to include non-U.S. LGBT families. Julieta has also done Spanish translations of all the interviews, which you will find after the English
