“An anti-gay activist just came up to him and punched him in the face,” Nissen recalls. At one gay-pride rally, Nissen witnessed a brutal attack on Kirill Fedorov, a young gay man and activist he’d been following for several days. (Anti-gay activists have attempted to infiltrate Russia’s LGBT community.) But soon, they were bringing him to underground clubs and spaces where the community gathers, and sharing their stories of being assaulted and arrested. The activists he met were suspicious at first, asking him to share his website and other information to test his intentions. A student tipped him off to the wedding registry attempt. Debate is the only thing that can lead to any battle or change.”ĭanish photographer Mads Nissen was in Russia teaching a photography workshop when Article 6.21 passed. “Before, it wasn’t accepted to talk about this,” Petrova says. Yet some also say the law has bolstered their cause. Since the gay-propaganda law passed, activists have noted a sharp uptick in anti-gay violence. Last year, Moscow enacted a century-long ban on gay-pride events. Petersburg, had already passed similar measures, and surveys suggest more than 70 percent of Russians believe LGBT people should remain closeted. The new law, which has drawn worldwide criticism and inspired calls to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, further codified Russia’s widespread homophobia: 12 cities, including St. President Vladimir Putin signed the bill into law on June 30.
The bill was understood to prohibit all open expression of gay identity, from parades and rainbow flags to same-sex couples holding hands in public. Just two days earlier, the nation’s upper house of parliament had unanimously passed a bill banning “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations among minors” and imposing fines between $120 and $30,000 for offenders. “But there wasn’t much they could do-we’d already downloaded them.”
“They didn’t even want to give us the blank applications,” says Yana Petrova, who tried to marry her partner, Elena Davydova.
A video of the day shows confounded clerks unsuccessfully trying to keep the beaming lovers out as they head to a waiting room where they kiss in protest. The same-sex pairs had come to apply for marriage licenses they knew they were unlikely to get, but they wanted to make a statement. On June 28, 2013, five couples in wedding finery piled into a white limo and pulled up to a municipal office in St. Sign up for the free Mother Jones newsletter. Get a daily recap of the facts that matter.
0 kommentar(er)
