Georgian lawmakers on Tuesday approved the third and final reading of a law on \u201cfamily values and the protection of minors\u201d that would impose sweeping curbs on LGBTQ rights. <\/p>\n
The bill would provide a legal basis for authorities to outlaw Pride events and public displays of the LGBTQ rainbow flag, and to impose censorship of films and books. <\/p>\n
Leaders of the governing Georgian Dream party say it is needed to safeguard traditional moral standards in Georgia, whose deeply conservative Orthodox Church is highly influential. <\/p>\n
Activists say the measure is aimed at boosting conservative support for the government ahead of a parliamentary election on October 26 in Georgia, a country that has ambitions to join the European Union but which Western governments fear is now tilting back towards Russia. <\/p>\n
Tamara Jakeli, director of campaign group Tbilisi Pride, said the bill, which also restates an existing ban on same-sex marriage and bans gender reassignment surgery, would likely force her organisation to close its doors. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis law is the most terrible thing to happen to the LGBTQ community in Georgia,\u201d Jakeli, 28, told Reuters. \u201cWe will most likely have to shut down. There is no way for us to continue functioning.\u201d <\/p>\n
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, a critic of Georgian Dream whose powers are mostly ceremonial, has indicated that she will block the bill. But Georgian Dream and its allies have enough seats in parliament to override her veto. <\/p>\n
LGBTQ rights are a fraught topic in Georgia, where polls show broad disapproval of same-sex relationships, and the constitution bans same-sex marriage. Participants in Tbilisi\u2019s annual Pride marches have come under physical attack by anti-LGBTQ protesters in recent years. <\/p>\n
The issue has become more prominent ahead of October\u2019s election, where Georgian Dream is seeking a fourth term in office and is campaigning heavily against LGBTQ rights. <\/p>\n
The ruling party, whose top candidate for the election is billionaire ex-prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, has deepened ties with neighbouring Russia as relations with Western countries have soured. <\/p>\n
Earlier this year, it passed a law on \u201cforeign agents\u201d that the European and U.S. critics said is authoritarian and Russian-inspired. Its passage sparked some of the largest protests Georgia has seen since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. <\/p>\n
Opinion polls show the party, which in 2014 passed a law banning anti-LGBTQ discrimination before later pivoting to more conservative positions, remains Georgia\u2019s most popular, though it has lost ground since 2020, when it won a narrow majority in parliament. <\/p>\n
In one ruling party advert aired on Georgian television, Pride director Jakeli\u2019s face is shown alongside the words: \u201cNo to moral degradation\u201d. <\/p>\n
Jakeli said that the bill could only be stopped if Georgian Dream were to lose power in October, though she noted that the country\u2019s opposition parties are not overtly supportive of LGBTQ rights. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe only way we can survive in this country and have any progress on LGBTQ rights is for us to go in great numbers to the elections and vote for change,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Georgian lawmakers on Tuesday approved the third and final reading of a law on \u201cfamily values and the protection of minors\u201d that would impose sweeping curbs on LGBTQ rights. The bill would provide a legal basis for authorities to outlaw Pride events and public displays of the LGBTQ rainbow flag, and to impose censorship of <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7783,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}