TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Georgia’s ruling party introduced a bill Tuesday that would restrict LGBTQ+ rights.
The Georgian Dream proposals are similar to laws enacted in Russia and follow authorities passing another law that critics say borrows from Moscow’s playbook: the “Foreign Influence” law. It sparked weeks of mass protests and was widely criticized for threatening democratic freedoms and endangering Georgia’s chances of joining the European Union.
If passed, the bill would ban same-sex marriage, gender-affirming care and changing one’s gender marker in official documents, adoption by same-sex couples, public approval of same-sex relationships at gatherings and in educational institutions, and the depiction of homosexual prohibit relationships. same-sex relationships in the media.
The new initiative was announced by parliament speaker and Georgian Dream member Shalva Papuashvili, just a day after he signed the law on ‘foreign influence’ that came into effect.
The Foreign Influence Act requires news media and non-governmental organizations to register as “agents of foreign influence” if they receive more than 20% of their budget from abroad. It sparked mass protests in the Georgian capital Tbilisi last month, and opponents are calling it the “Russian law” because it resembles rules in Russia that the Kremlin uses to combat dissent.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili vetoed the bill, but parliament overrode the veto and on Monday Papushvili signed it into law.
Georgian Dream’s proposals to restrict LGBTQ+ rights could also draw comparisons to the laws in force in Russia. Russian authorities have also banned public approval of “non-traditional sexual relations,” gender-affirming care and changing one’s gender in official documents over the past decade.
In the latest move against the already beleaguered community is the Russian Supreme Court LGBTQ+ activism effectively banned by what authorities label the LGBTQ+ movement active in Russia as an extremist organization and ban it.
