Putting “Traditional Values” Into Practice: The Rise and Contestation of Anti-Homopropaganda Laws in Russia

Abstract

This article explores how “traditional values” are being used by the Russian government to refute the claim that “LGBT rights are human rights” and justify the introduction of anti-homopropaganda laws, and how members of the Russian LGBT community have sought to contest it. Centrally, it traces the development of a discourse that refutes the essentialization of sexual identity and, in doing so, seeks to challenge the focus on individual identity-based rights of contemporary human rights norms. This discursive shift has meant that opponents of the legislation have had to develop contestation strategies that collectively seek to present an alternative interpretation of “traditional values.” The article concludes by considering the implications of the Russian case for human rights norms and for the notion of universal human rights more widely, arguing that it represents a serious challenge to the viability of identity-based LGBT rights claims as a basis on which to advance observance of fundamental human rights due to their homonormativity.

Notes

Russia's most recent term on the UNHRC ran from June 2009 until December 2012. The Russian Federation was re-elected to the UNHRC on November 12, 2013 for another three-year term beginning on January 1, 2014.

The resolution was adopted by a recorded vote of 24 to 14, with seven abstentions.

As with the previous two resolutions, the recorded vote of 25 to 15, with seven abstentions, is indicative of the divisiveness of the matter amongst UNHRC members.

A full list of submissions is available at http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Pages/TraditionalValues.aspx

Article 3.10 is available at http://docs.cntd.ru/document/819077396 [12 December 2013].

Kostroma Oblast, Magadan Oblast, Novosibirsk Oblast, Krasnodar Krai, Samara Oblast, and Bashkortostan passed laws in 2012, with Kaliningrad Oblast following suit in February 2013).

Kondakov notes that under Ivan the Terrible the prohibition on homosexual relations applied only to the clergy. Some 164 years later, Peter the Great criminalized sexual relations between men in the army.

http://www.komitet2-6.km.duma.gov.ru/site.xp/050049124053056052.html [11 March 2014]. The concept's development was led by Elena Mizulina, one of the main sponsors of the federal law against the propagandizing of nontraditional sexual relations, in her role as Chair of the Duma Committee on Family, Women and Children's Affairs.

I am by far not the first to use the term “moral sovereignty,” and this definition may not accord with its use by other scholars in other contexts. My use of the term broadly corresponds with Gille's (2011) usage of the concept to describe the concern of the state to be able to resolve ethical questions in a way that is satisfactory to the state's population and does not undermine the legitimacy of the state and national identity.

Holzhacker (2013: 23) asserts that this mode of interaction is possible “where there is a high degree of public support for equality and minimal partisan or religious opposition to the goals of the movement.” However, in the Russian case the approach functioned somewhat differently in that it was an attempt by local actors to use international support and pressure (especially from the EU) to introduce external norms to Russia despite a lack of public support that gradually developed into direct resistance.

See https://www.facebook.com/groups/378474945543273/, https://www.facebook.com/straights.for.equality, and http://vk.com/straights_for_equality [28 December 2013].

http://tvrain.ru/tag/890/ [18 December 2013].

http://www.hrc.org/campaigns/Russias-anti-LGBT-Agenda [6 December 2013].