Yesterday Tilda Swinton took a stand outside the Kremlin palace in Moscow, bearing a rainbow flag – first popularized as a symbol of LGBT pride by Gilbert Baker in 1978 – confirming her support for the gay community in Russia...
Who? On Thursday morning Tilda Swinton took a stand in support of the LGBT community releasing an image of herself in front of a manned police car next to the Kremlin holding up a rainbow flag – first popularized as a symbol of LGBT pride by San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker in 1978 – with the message "In solidarity. From Russia with love". A conscious act of defiance, she and her partner Sandro Kopp, who took the picture, risked arrest after the Kremlin announced on 30th June that Russian president Vladimir Putin had signed into law a ban on "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations". Last week a peaceful gay pride march in St Petersburg was disturbed by anti-gay protesters throwing eggs, smoke flares and stones. Police intervened with batons, arresting dozens of people participating in the pride march under the new Russian statute forbidding "gay propaganda". Swinton has been an activist for gay rights since the 1980s when she protested Thatcher's comparably oppressive clause 28 of the civil liberties bill in the UK - a clause later quashed, largely as a result of public outcry.
"On Thursday morning Tilda Swinton took a stand in support of the LGBT community releasing an image of herself in front of a manned police car next to the Kremlin holding up a rainbow flag"
What? At first, the title of the bill seems unthreatening, innocuous even, but the truth is that it represents presidential validation of the growing wave of anti-gay intolerance that has taken place in Russian society over recent years. According to the Americablog, the bill would ban anything considered pro-gay, from gay-affirmative speech, to gays holding hands in public, to wearing rainbow suspenders.
Male homosexual acts were in fact decriminalised in Russia in 1993, but recent years have seen increasing restrictions on gay rights, with Moscow’s top court decreeing that no gay pride parade may be held in the capital for 100 years, and the Duma unanimously passing a bill banning same-sex couples from adopting Russian children. Putin himself resolutely denies any attitude of homophobia - “homosexuals are equal citizens enjoying full rights” [in Russia.] It’s not about imposing some sort of sanctions on homosexuality…” – yet there is clearly something afoot, with him describing the anti-propaganda law as being “about protecting children from such [gay] information.”
Why? The ban on "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations" is part of an effort to promote traditional Russian values over western liberalism, which the Kremlin and the Russian orthodox church see as corrupting Russian youth and contributing to the protests against Putin's rule. As Putin looks to cement his hold on power, he is turning to the old guard for support, a group who seem determined to eradicate the visibility of the LBGT community. With Russia due to host the Winter Olympic Games in a matter of months, it is time that the world took a stand against a nation that is unravelling the human rights of its citizens.
