Russia To Pass New Anti-Gay Legislation Banning “Gay Propaganda”; Media Oligarch Says Bill is “Part of War Effort”

Glob­al media is report­ing on new Russ­ian anti-gay leg­is­la­tion, amend­ing a 2013 law that bans expos­ing minors to “gay pro­pa­gan­da.” Accord­ing to an Agence France-Press report, Russ­ian oli­garch Kon­stan­tin Mal­ofeyev told a Duma hear­ing that pass­ing the law would be part of Rus­si­a’s war effort in Ukraine:

Octo­ber 17, 2022 Russ­ian law­mak­ers Mon­day called for the tough­en­ing of a strict anti-gay law and the Krem­lin ordered expen­sive patri­ot­ic edu­ca­tion projects as Moscow press­es with a con­ser­v­a­tive dri­ve at home while its troops fight in Ukraine. The low­er house of the Russ­ian par­lia­ment, the Duma, held a con­sul­ta­tion ses­sion on amend­ments to the 2013 law that bans expos­ing minors to what author­i­ties deem “gay pro­pa­gan­da.” AD The draft bill would take it fur­ther by also ban­ning the “denial of fam­i­ly val­ues” and the “pro­mo­tion of non-tra­di­tion­al sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tions” to all ages. Law­mak­ers argued the law needs to be tough­ened amid Rus­si­a’s inten­si­fied con­fronta­tion with the West and as its armed forces bat­tle next-door. Alexan­der Khin­stein, a senior law­mak­er and the head of the Duma’s infor­ma­tion com­mit­tee, said the Ukraine offen­sive had giv­en the pro­posed law “new rel­e­vance.” “The spe­cial oper­a­tion takes place not only on the bat­tle­field, but also in the minds and souls of peo­ple,” Khin­stein said. Kon­stan­tin Mal­ofeyev, a banker and con­ser­v­a­tive media baron, told the Duma hear­ing that pass­ing the law is part of Rus­si­a’s war effort. “The war is not only on the bat­tle­field. It is also in the smart-phones of our chil­dren, in car­toons and films,” Mal­ofeyev said. AD “Our ene­my real­ly holds the pro­pa­gan­da of sodomy as the core of its influ­ence,” he said. The amend­ments are expect­ed to be approved this autumn, accord­ing to Duma speak­er Vyach­eslav Volodin. Volodin said the law would “pro­tect” Rus­sians. “It is not to lim­it rights, but pro­tect them from pro­pa­gan­da,” he said.

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed last week that Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladamir Putin had once again deliv­ered a speech in which he exten­sive­ly ref­er­enced so-called “cul­ture war” themes com­mon­ly espoused by rightwing/conservative West­ern ele­ments. In his remarks,  Putin referred to  “strange, in my opin­ion, new­fan­gled trends like dozens of gen­ders and gay pride parades,

Respect for the pecu­liar­i­ties of peo­ples and civ­i­liza­tions is in the inter­ests of every­one. In fact, this is also in the inter­ests of the so-called West. Los­ing its dom­i­nance, it quick­ly becomes a minor­i­ty on the world stage. And, of course, the right of this West­ern minor­i­ty to their own cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, of course, I want to empha­size this, must be ensured, it must be treat­ed, of course, with respect, but, I empha­size, on an equal foot­ing with the rights of every­one else. If West­ern elites think they can inject into the minds of their peo­ple, their soci­eties, strange, in my opin­ion, new­fan­gled trends like dozens of gen­ders and gay pride parades, then so be it. Let them do what they want! But what they cer­tain­ly have no right to do is to require oth­ers to fol­low in the same direction.

Putin has long been known for his desire to become the ide­o­log­i­cal cen­ter of a Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive (GNCA) alliance described in a GIOR report as follows:

Russ­ian Pres­i­dent PUTIN has expressed an inter­est in Rus­sia becom­ing the ide­o­log­i­cal cen­ter of a new glob­al con­ser­v­a­tive alliance, and Euro­pean far-right lead­ers have tak­en pro-Russ­ian posi­tions based on a sim­i­lar ide­ol­o­gy. Hun­gary is at the cen­ter of a devel­op­ing alliance between Euro­pean far-right nation­al­ists and Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tives that Rus­sia could poten­tial­ly exploit for use in infor­ma­tion war­fare. This alliance oper­ates under the rubric of “Nation­al Con­ser­vatism,” cen­tered on nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, and oppo­si­tion to glob­al insti­tu­tions and rep­re­sent­ing a poten­tial­ly rad­i­cal change for the US con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment away from long-held Rea­gan-era philosophies.

Read the full report here.

Oppo­si­tion to “gen­der ide­ol­o­gy” is a cen­tral issue for the GNCA and GIOR also report­ed last week on the role played by the Math­ias Corv­i­nus Col­legium (MCC), a Hun­gar­i­an edu­ca­tion facil­i­ty sup­port­ed by the Orban gov­ern­ment, in dis­sem­i­nat­ing Russ­ian-style anti-LGBTQ pro­pa­gan­da. We also report­ed ear­li­er this week on the new Ital­ian far-right Prime Min­is­ter Gior­gia Mel­oni and the anti-gay posi­tions of her and her coali­tion partners.

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) also report­ed this week that Kon­stan­tin Mal­ofeyev had report­ed­ly cho­sen one of two MEPs from Marine Le Pen’s Rassem­ble­ment Nation­al par­ty to par­tic­i­pate in a secret project called “Alt­In­tern,” intend­ed to pro­mote val­ues such as “Chris­ten­dom as the foun­da­tion of life” and mar­riage as “the union of a man and a woman.” In March 2022, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed on leaked emails and doc­u­ments that showed how a Russ­ian influ­ence group known as Tsar­grad was coop­er­at­ing with senior far-right politi­cians in Italy, France, Ger­many, and Aus­tria. As that post detailed, Tsar­grad is fund­ed by the Russ­ian oli­garch Kon­stan­tin Mal­ofeyev (aka Mal­ofeev), known by US intel­li­gence as the Russ­ian Pres­i­den­t’s “right arm for oper­a­tions of polit­i­cal inter­fer­ence in Europe,” and des­ig­nat­ed by the US in 2014 over his inter­fer­ence in Ukraine. A recent UK media pro­file of Mal­ofeyev describes him and his role in fund­ing anti-abor­tion, anti-LGB­TIQ initiatives:

Mal­ofeyev gained his wealth in telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions dur­ing the late 2000s. He has used his pow­er to wage an infor­ma­tion war on Europe, alleged­ly pro­vid­ing loans to far-right par­ties and fund­ing anti-abor­tion, anti-LGB­TIQ ini­tia­tives in the region.   His influ­ence empire includes the Kate­hon think-tank which reg­u­lar­ly plat­forms far-right authors and is “con­sid­ered one of the instru­ments for Russ­ian inter­fer­ence in the West”. The US State Depart­ment describes Kate­hon as “a pro­lif­er­a­tor of vir­u­lent anti-West­ern dis­in­for­ma­tion and pro­pa­gan­da”.   Tsar­grad TV is the pub­lic enter­tain­ment face of Kate­hon. Dubbed by the Finan­cial Times as “God’s TV, Russ­ian style”, the chan­nel was delib­er­ate­ly designed to mim­ic Fox News and judge polit­i­cal can­di­dates’ views on issues such as reli­gion, abor­tion, LGBTIQ rights and Putin.

A BBC report describes the pro­posed new Russ­ian leg­is­la­tion, which is expect­ed to receive the required approvals:

Octo­ber 24, 2022 The wide-rang­ing ban also extends to adver­tis­ing and books — both non-fic­tion and lit­er­a­ture — rais­ing cen­sor­ship con­cerns from pub­lish­ers, who have warned of the risk that it could even affect clas­sics of Russ­ian lit­er­a­ture. The law sets out fines of between 50,000 rou­bles (£705; $815) and 400,000 rou­bles, while non-Rus­sians who vio­late the ban face expul­sion from the coun­try. The bill has broad sup­port but will first be approved by the upper house of the Russ­ian par­lia­ment, the Fed­er­a­tion Coun­cil, before it is rat­i­fied by Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin.