TotallyOz Posted January 25, 2013 Posted January 25, 2013 The Russian Lower House has passed at the first reading a bill banning homosexual propaganda towards minors, which has already been labeled by opponents as anti-gay. The bill was supported by 388 MPs with one vote against and one abstention. The ban was submitted by deputies from the Novosibirsk Region in Siberia, who had earlier introduced similar local regulations. If approved, it would introduce heavy fines for the promotion of homosexuality among children. Those found guilty of the offence could be fined up to 5000 roubles (about $160), but the fines increase 10-fold for officials and 100-fold for companies. Hearings were initially scheduled for December, but got postponed twice which caused some MPs to suggest that there must be some kind of a homosexual conspiracy which is desperate to prevent the law from coming into force. Similar laws already exist in several Russian regions, including the countrys second-largest city St. Petersburg. The initiators of the federal ban say that homosexual propaganda in Russia is rife, both through the mass media and public action, and children are especially vulnerable as they cannot critically appraise the avalanches of gay propaganda that fall upon them every day. The gay community strongly opposes the regulations, claiming the law lacks a precise legal definition of homosexuality, bisexuality and transgender. However, when they attempted to contest the law last year they were continually turned down right up to the Supreme Court. http://rt.com/politics/russian-first-ban-gay-722/ Quote
