MOSCOW (AP) — The lower house of Russia’s parliament overwhelmingly approved on Wednesday the first reading of a bill to ban the adoption of Russian children by citizens of countries where gender reassignment is legal.
The measure, which must be debated twice more in the Duma before it can be sent to the upper house and then to President Vladimir Putin, follows a series of other laws and rulings that have been tougher on sexual minorities.
Putin and other top officials have increasingly called in recent years for the observance of so-called “traditional values” as a counterbalance to Western liberalism, which has been characterized as degenerate.
Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said the bill was aimed at “protecting childhood and traditional values” and would affect citizens of dozens of countries.
“It is necessary to protect our children from the dangers they may face if adopted or given custody by citizens of foreign countries where gender reassignment is permitted,” he said.
“The problem is not that Russia’s moral compass and moral foundations are aimed at protecting traditional values and the understanding of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, but it is about directly protecting the life of a child,” said Irina Yarovaya, deputy speaker of the parliament.
Russia’s Supreme Court last year banned the LGBTQ movement as extremist. In 2022, Putin signed a law banning the distribution of LGBTQ information to people of all ages, extending a 2013 ban on distributing the material to minors.
The Duma was also scheduled to discuss bills on Wednesday that would ban the dissemination of information about voluntary childbearing.
As Russia’s population shrinks, Putin has advocated large families over the year, last year even urging women to have a maximum of eight children.
