Jakarta Globe – AFP, Maria Antonova, August 15, 2013
 |
A file picture taken on May 25, 2013, shows a Russian gay rights activist
holding a poster reading “Love is stronger than homophobia!” while siting
inside a police van after his detention during an unauthorized gay rights
activists rally in central Moscow. (AFP Photo/Kirill Kudryavtsev)
|
Moscow.
Maria and Alexandra vaguely considered leaving Russia for several years, but it
was not until this year’s anti-gay legislation that they started to gather
paperwork.
The quiet,
academic lesbian couple, who live with a seven-year-old daughter in the
outskirts of Moscow, have now lost hope that Russia is moving in the direction
of Europe, where same-sex marriages are increasingly legalized despite
opposition from conservatives.
“Before,
there was hope that everything would improve, but instead the trend has
reversed. I hope that we will leave,” said Maria, 31 who has a daughter Lilya
from a short-lived marriage. She is now raising her with her partner of six
years, Alexandra, 30.
Earlier
this year President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning the dissemination of
“gay propaganda” to minors, which has already prompted an international outcry
and even calls for Russia to be stripped of its right to host the Winter
Olympics.
In
practice, the law means that anyone in Russia can be fined for telling children
that homosexual and heterosexual relationships are equal. This “really speeded
us up” in wanting to leave the country, Maria said.
Everyone
interviewed by AFP for this article requested that only first names are used,
and some asked that even the first names are changed, in order to keep their
identity secret.
The women
have started an application process for residency in Canada, where Alexandra, a
research scientist, qualifies as a young professional and can bring the whole
family of three over under the country’s conditions for same-sex couples.
The gay
propaganda law is just the beginning, they said, pointing out recent remarks by
lawmaker Yelena Mizulina that the state should have the right to take children
out of homosexual families.
‘Gays are
enemy number one’
Mizulina
has said the family committee she is chairing in the Duma lower house is
writing a new family policy based on “traditional” values like registered heterosexual
marriage and refusal of abortions.
“We are
looking into the possibility of creating a legal basis for taking children out
of families that are de-facto gay marriages,” said Mizulina, who has also
sponsored a bill banning adoptions by foreign same-sex couples.
Last month,
Russia’s influential Orthodox Patriarch Kirill called the increasing
legalization of same-sex marriage in other countries a “syndrome of apocalypse”
which Russia must fight.
Militantly
conservative rhetoric has come amid increasing intolerance. Since 2005, the
number of people who believe gays should have equal rights as the rest of
society fell from 51 to 39 percent this year.
The number
of people who believe that homosexuality is an illness or is caused by
“licentiousness” also grew from 67 to 78 percent in that period, according to
Levada center pollster.
Violent
crimes committed against gays are rarely investigated, according to
Moscow-based lawyer Ilnur Sharapov who had represented people injured at gay
protests by neo-Nazi or ultraconservative Orthodox activists.
“Hooliganism
and injury cases very quickly reach trial unless the victim is gay,” he told
AFP.
In the
increasingly homophobic environment, gay parents now worry what will happen if
their child is asked about their home situation in school.
“It’s a
question of our mutual trust on the one hand, and of her safety in society on
the other hand,” said Olga, 34, a lesbian who has a small daughter, explaining
that she does not want to lie to her child when she is old enough to
understand.
“When you
write up a bill like this, without any clear definitions, it means that you are
not planning to practice justice with it, it means that you are planning to
destroy,” she said, fearing that the propaganda law can be used against any gay
parent.
“Once the
government singled out gays as the enemy number one, it became clear that it’s
time to go,” she said. She is taking language classes and saving money to move
to Poland, where she can legally repatriate because of her heritage.
‘A chain of
silence’
Single
mothers, or two women living together with a child are a familiar picture in
Russia.
But in a
country where men almost never get custody in a divorce, gay men have to be
more circumspect, said Artyom, 30, who recently became a biological father to
twins and is helping a lesbian couple raise them.
“I wanted
children, it was a conscious decision, I looked for candidates online,” said
Artyom, 30, who works as a doctor in Saint Petersburg.
He and the
babies’ mother married when she was pregnant, and their parents happily help
out in full ignorance that his wife is in a long-term relationship with a
woman. He spends time daily with the children, feeding, changing, and taking
them for walks.
“We’ll keep
our anonymity, the semblance of a regular traditional family,” said Artyom, who
posted pictures from his wedding on his social networking page. “It’s a working
legend,” he said. “Many people do the same.”
“If
everything was quiet, like in our family where we quietly got married, then
maybe there wouldn’t be so many problems,” including the latest anti-gay laws,
he said.
Artyom’s
view that gays should keep quiet about who they are is very widespread. The gay
propaganda law was protested only by a handful of people.
“It’s like
a chain of silence,” said Alexandra. “When someone is oppressed, they become
silent themselves. But that’s a loser’s position, so we plan to flee.”
Agence France-Presse
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