A Russian State Duma committee has
rejected a bill that sought to make it illegal for gay men to come
out publicly
According
to Radio Free Europe, the Committee on Constitutional Legislation
and State Building rejected the bill on January 18.
State Duma lawmakers Ivan Nikitchuk and
Nikolay Arefyev's proposal sought to amend the Russian Administrative
code to ban any public demonstration of “non-traditional” sexual
orientation.
Violators would have been subject to
fines of up to 5,000 rubles (roughly $80) or up to 15 days of arrest.
“I think that the problem is acute
and urgent because it concerns the social diseases of our society and
the moral upbringing of the younger generation,” Nikitchuk told
Izvestia.
He added that homosexuality is a “grave
danger to humanity” because “failure to reproduce is the same as
death and this makes homosexuality a deadly danger for humanity.”
The lawmakers explained that their bill
only targeted men because women are more capable of “managing their
emotions.”
Human Rights Watch criticized the bill
as a “new and absurd low in discriminatory legislative proposals.”