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SHE HAS THE sober demeanour and tightly-wound bun of a boarding school headmistress. And she’s Vladimir Putin’s new morality crusader, spearheading efforts to curb gay rights, punish online cursing and impose a tax on divorce.
Yelena Mizulina, a member of parliament, has used her position as the head of the Committee on Family, Women and Children to author increasingly conservative laws, including a ban on homosexual “propaganda” that went into force last month.
Her pearls, bland blazers and matronly mien belie a fierce fighter who is ready to take her loudest critics to court. In turn, they have labelled her the “Inquisitor” and ridiculed her online. One recent blog posting shows her gritting her teeth with the speech bubble: “You will behave yourself while on My Internet.”
While the morality enforcer’s policies have drawn the criticism of Western activists and liberal Russians, they strike a chord with a socially conservative Russian majority that is President Putin’s support base.
Since returning to the presidency last year following unprecedented street protests, Putin has bolstered his eroding popular support by turning toward the Russian Orthodox Church and integrating its rhetoric of traditional values. The Kremlin pits this conservatism against what it casts as a decadent West that threatens Russian society.
Mizulina’s committee has been responsible for a score of laws and projects promoting traditional Russian values and warning of Russia’s moral and demographic decline, as persistently low birthrates have resulted in a shrinking and aging population. Mizulina proposes to fight this in part by fighting gay relationships and taxing divorce.
“Of course policies on family issues revolve around the question: what in Russia do we consider a family?” said Olga Batalina, Mizulina’s close ally and deputy chairman of the committee told The Associated Press. In Russia, she said, a family is a marriage between a man and a woman with children, preferably at least three. Mizulina declined requests for an interview.
Divorce tax
In a policy planning paper drafted in late May, the committee called for the increased involvement of the Russian Orthodox Church in family issues, more financial support for families with many children and the divorce tax. Ironically, the paper was published within a week of Putin announcing his own divorce, sparking jokes that the timing of the split with his wife was, in effect, tax evasion.
The two women lawmakers stirred the most controversy this spring, when they championed the law banning the spread of propaganda of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors.
The law, which describes homosexual ‘propaganda’ vaguely as anything “aimed at the formation of nontraditional sexual behavior,” levies fines of up to 5,000 rubles (€110) on individuals and up to 1 million rubles (€23,000) for companies, including media organizations, which violate it.
Riot police in Russia guarding gay rights activists who were beaten by anti-gay protestors who were beaten during an authorised gay rights rally in St Petersburg, Russia. Pic: AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky, File.
While the law provoked a backlash in the West, where protesters called for a boycott of Russian vodka in gay bars across North America, it has stirred little contention in Russia.
The number of people who consider homosexuality either “licentiousness” or “a sickness or result of some psychological trauma” rose from 68 per cent in 1998 to 78 percent in 2013, according to a May poll conducted by the independent Levada’s Centre. Whereas 51 percent of Russians said in 2005 said that gays and lesbians should have the same rights as others, the number dropped to 39 per cent by 2013, according to the polls, which have a margin of error of 3.4 per cent.
Social intolerance increased
Maria Plotko, a sociologist at the Levada Centre responsible for its polls on homosexuality, said the level of social intolerance increased significantly within the last year as homosexuality became a frequent topic of political discussion.
“It’s easy to set people up against them (gays), because the percentage of people who know them is very small,” said Plotko. In a Levada poll from early July, 80 per cent of respondents said they didn’t have a single LGBT acquaintance.
Plotko emphasised that Russian conservatism differs from its Bible belt counterpart in the United States: Russians widely condone and practice abortion, common law marriage and divorce. But the growing sense of a national identity, rooted in Orthodox Christianity, has meant that minority groups that fall outside of the church — from gays to the Muslims — face increasing disapproval in society.
Vigilante homophobia is on the rise among some extremist nationalist groups. Nationalists in a new movement called Occupy Pedophilia use gay dating websites to lure young men and boys into meetings, where they taunt them on camera and then publish the videos online.
Nikolai Alexeyev, a founder of the Russian gay pride movement, called it a vicious circle.
Activist Nikolai Alexeyev, left, with a member of the German Bundestag, Volker Beck, appealing as far back as 2010 for more support from the EU in the battle against Russia’s clampdown on gay rights. Pic: AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko/PA Images.
“On the one hand, you have the fact that the majority supposedly support these initiatives. And on the other you have the authorities, like Mizulina, who instead of making this majority more tolerant, are tossing logs on the fire,” Alexeyev said. “They’ll end up burning all of us.”
Despite the support of a vast majority of Russians, Mizulina and Batalina have proven intolerant of dissent from liberals who take issue with their policies. They have persuaded prosecutors to open a criminal case against Alexeyev and others on charges of slander and “insulting a representative of the government.”
“We decided that it was a matter of principal to set a precedent,” Mizulina said recently on the radio station Ekho Moskvy. She said Alexeyev’s criticism was aimed at…
…turning public opinion against us to make us look like some kind of crazy old aunts.
She was quoted by the newspaper Izvestia as saying he should be punished with community service “somewhere where he can’t be involved in gay propaganda, like in a morgue van.”
The career trajectory of the 58-year-old politician, who has a PhD in law, reflects the political changes that have transformed Russia since Putin came to power in 2000.
In 2001, she left Yabloko, the party of the Moscow-based intellectual elite, citing its miserable showing in elections. “The people, our voters who believe in us, want something in their lives to change,” Mizulina said in an interview with the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta. “And in order to change something, we have to be a party that doesn’t look down its nose at power.”
She joined another liberal party, but after another failed election left it in 2007 for Just Russia, a left-leaning party created by the Kremlin to sap votes from the Communists. On certain issues Mizulina still goes against the Kremlin line, as she did in November when she argued before Russia’s highest court that a law levying heavy fines for unsanctioned protests was unconstitutional.
Championing a conservative agenda
Since returning to the presidency for a third term, Putin has wielded a two-pronged approach to politics.
On the one hand, the Kremlin has pushed through repressive laws aimed at suppressing dissent among the liberal, middle-class Russians who joined the anti-Putin protests. But through championing a conservative agenda, he is also reaching out to a broad base of Russia to bolster his popular support.
Putin’s conservative turn threatens to add some drama to the 2014 Winter Games, which Russia is hosting in Sochi in February.
Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, said Friday in Moscow that the IOC is waiting for more explanations from Russia on the anti-gay law that has cast a shadow over the Sochi Winter Games.
“The Olympic charter is clear,” Rogge said. “A sport is a human right and it should be available to all, regardless of race, sex or sexual orientation.”
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She looks like that woman in the James Bond films with the knives built into her shoes
U took my words ..
Bulldog chewing a wasp.
Move the winter Olympics to somewhere where the government doesn’t encourage & condone homophobia. Then move the FIFA world cup from Russia & Qatar to somewhere civilised.
“Curbing online cursing” WTF? Is this woman living in the 1920s??
You’ll usually find that people with these extreme views are the ones who have the rather large collection of skeletons in their closets, blaming gays on our high rate of murders?? Are you a member of the Westboro church by chance?
So gay people are the reason for the increase in crime Louise! Maybe you should move to Russia, if you feel that way
“thanks to our new approach to homosexuality we now have less tolerance for family and children”
You do know that gay people have families and some have children, that’s part of the reason that we’re pushing for marriage equality, so that they will have the same recognion and protection as other families.
She has a face like a painters radio
@Justin I think you mean : she has a face like a welder’s bench …
Lol
@Louise : you and Yelena should be running the country!
Let’s get back to the real core values of Ireland : insularism, negativism, begrudgery, homophobia, and while you’re at it : throw in a bit of Self Righteous Catholicism too.
Freedom? If Gay People can have freedom, sure then we’d all want it…
Some arguments I can follow even if I don’t agree with them. But how can homosexuality be blamed for increased crime rates? Like I actually can’t fathom where you’re coming from?
Louise is just an egg, what would she know!!
Thomas,will also be looking to have the World Cup and the next summer Olympics boycotted and moved, since brazil has it’s own human rights abuse issues?
@Louise: Your idea is terrible. Though acceptance of homosexuality may lead to a more morally devoid nation in your book… it does not lead to an objectively immoral nation, measured by crime rates.
Countries with an intolerance to LGBT are more likely to have more criminal activity.
Louise you are very uneducated. Change that its easy. Normal? Homosexual acts are everywhere in the natural world. Theres nothing unusual about it. Also its a type of love. To blame murder rates on it is strange to say the least. Do you have any statistics on how many of the murders commited in the last 5 years were commited by gay people.
@Louise: Just in case you don’t believe me, compare this graph of “Global acceptance of homosexuality” http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/04/global-acceptance-of-homosexuality/ with this graph, “World map crime index” http://www.numbeo.com/crime/gmaps_rankings_country.jsp?indexToShow=main&title=2013-Q1&OK=OK
Or maybe you’d rather I spell it out for you?
Louise. I really hope you are just a troll and this isn’t what you really think but I think you might actually be for real. Encouraging openness and tolerance for all human kind is not going to do anything negative to society. Being gay is natural by the by, hence it exists in all animal species as well as human beings. If anything teaching your children that being gay is not normal or natural will only create more bigoted opinions like yours.
Ah would ya go away Louise , as if the heterosexual community aren’t forming drug gangs and driving up murder rare , linking sexuality to that is utter shite….your comments are basically just homophobic and your argument completely flimsy
See the world championships athletics in Moscow to day Thomas?
You’re mad Louise!
What a chilling turn of events, lack of education and religious influence always lead to bigotry and hatred, when will we ever learn. Getting seriously p*ssed off with gay people being treated like sh*t in these backward countries. I’d love to boycott Russian goods sold here, don’t drink vodka and I haven’t seen a Lada on the roads for about 16 years.
A nasty power crazed piece of work if ever there was one. A boycott of Russian products and a ban on Russian participation in the Winter Olympics are the best cards to play. In case anyone feels like sending a quick email to the Russian ambassador to Ireland (Maxim Peshkov) voicing their concerns here is the address info@russianembassy.ie They won’t respond but at least they know that right-thinking people object to their nazi-style laws.
Good comment Paul. We should also be lobbying our own Olympic committee to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics, I believe.
Our Foreign Affairs Dept should also a travel advisory that Russia is deemed an unsafe country for LGBTs and also for anybody who supports rights for LGBTs.
Cheers. Will get on to that asap. I see there are a lot of nazi-style law supporters giving me the thumbs down:-( Sucks to be them!
Sucks to be you boy.
Darryl (what a name!)you can go shave your back now.
A tax on divorce?
So the married couple must stay together even if they are miserable?
What a way to create an unhappy society!
Russia is taking shortcuts when it comes to thinking.
Pity she didn’t introduce it before Putin got divorced.
The world is gone over the top on PC I think she is only saying what she thinks.I know a lot of hypocrites who wouldn’t say they hated gay people in public but in private they say it.
She has a right to say what she thinks, but people also have a right to criticize the hell out of her for her intolerance towards other people. She is discriminating against people who have no control over that which they are being discriminated against and she is trying to silence opinion that differs from her views, so no in this instance it has nothing to do with political correctness.
I think it’s a bit of a bigger issue than that actually. People can have their own opinions if course but when you have political clout like these to crazies do and can actually bring laws in against people living the life they want to that’s when it starts to get scary
Denise with her pearls of wisdom again(roll eyes)
Denise you talk some amount of poo on this site.
Homosexuality is a genetic mutation just like hereditary baldness or arthiritis or any other condition or behaviour so why hate something that is pre ordained in your genetic code?
I just don’t get Russian people and how they consistently vote in dictators like Putin. These are the same Russian people who view Joesph Stalin as a national hero and affectionately call him ‘Uncle Joe’. The guy killed way, way more people than Hitler did. Hitler didn’t spend most of World War 2 killing his own people whereas Stalin killed more Russian people during the war than the enemies he was supposed to be fighting. Take a look at Stalin’s death toll, historians place it as somewhere in the region of 20 to 30 million people killed during his 30 year rule of Soviet Russia:
1 million imprisoned or exiled between 1927 to 1929
9 to 11 million peasants forced off their lands and another 2 to 3 million peasants arrested or exiled in the mass collectivization program;
6 to 7 million killed by an artificial famine in 1932-1934
1 million exiled from Moscow and Leningrad in 1935;
1 million executed during the ”Great Terror” of 1937-1938
4 to 6 million dispatched to forced labor camps
10 to 12 million people forcibly relocated during World War II, the majority starved
At least 1 million arrested for various “political crimes” from 1946 to 1953
The very fact the a majority of Russian people today see Joesph Stalin, a murderer of over 20 million people, as a hero just shows how fcuked up Russian society really is.
She can say what she thinks, but like everyone else, she has to deal with the repercussions of what she says. It’s not being PC, it’s being realistic.
Really you know a lot of people who hate gay people? Actually hate them? Poor you.
@Denise: Saying it in public doesn’t confer any greater integrity on them. A homophobe, whether covert or overt, is a despicable bigot. You think it’s “over the top PC” to decry the evil she and Putin and the Duma are inflicting on the citizens of Russia? You realise you sound like an apologist for this?
The article states Putin’s return to the Presidency but fails to mention he was a de-facto President behind his Puppet.
Putin could conceivably be in power directly or indirectly for decades and I can only imagine the damage he will do in Russia.
His laws are draconian pathetic and inhumane and the other World Leaders and Countries should hold him and his lapdogs to account.
I blame all the people of Russia who allow these creeps instil this way of life into their society. No interest in ever visiting that country.
Give that woman a vodka
God knows she needs it
In Qatar you get 5 yrs in prison if your gay. … Ridiculous
Yes, your punishment for being gay is to be locked up for years in an all male environment. Irony?
Maybe we should put people in prison for not knowing the difference between your and you’re. Then we might get some of the idiots off the streets making society a better place for people who actually received an education.
Louise, please improve your own grammar, before you start insulting people about a spelling mistake.
Louise might be over the top with the prison sentence, but I have to agree with her that the whole your/you’re thing is quite annoying. It’s hardly rocket science. Plus, I don’t see the grammatical error in her comment.
I don’t see a mistake either. ‘Your’ and ‘you’re’ mistakes pale in comparison to people saying ‘I seen’ instead of ‘I saw’. It drives me nuts.
Louise
If you put your hand out
You get your hand slapped
Haha
Louise Carroll you’re an idiot!! Stop posting dumbass comments!!! First of all saying gays are a reason for higher crime and murder and now you want to jail people cause they can’t spell – I think u should buy a one way ticket to Moscow! Have a feeling u might fit in
Fagan, here’s something for you. It’s called a full stop. Have a few……..
Louise the only one that needs an education is YOU!!! if the only response you have is to attack how i spell a particular word really says a lot for you as a person.. Take a look around you the world is changing! I feel for you ad your view! Awww bless!
“I feel for you ad your view!” What does that mean? Having trouble finding the right words? Do you even possess the right words? Like I said earlier, get an education. Then we can talk.
Louise
I find it sad that you have nothing better to do than correct people’s grammar on a Saturday afternoon full stop
With that time to head out full stop
You may have a academic education Louise but you don’t seem to have a social one.
Maybe you are just a troll with nothing better to do than antagonise people Louise. While I find that pathetic in itself it isn’t as bad as genuinely believing in your other comments regarding crime and it’s correlation to equal rights for gay people
I’m slightly dyslexic and can make dreadful mistakes but as no-one else has specified Louises’ errors I feel I should offer my opinion: comma’s are useful and can help the reader understand what’s being said so she might use them. I would be very reluctant to begin a sentence with the word ‘Then’, however Louise claims to have an ‘education’: that may be the difference.
Anne, I’m afraid you left out comma’s in the proper places while trying to explain yourself. Do you blame that on your lack of education or dyslexia? And tell me the difference between dyslexic and slightly dyslexic.
Maybe Louise, you could deal with the topic and debate the arguments raised against your ludicrous comment instead of deflecting with you grammar and spelling corrections?
Louise, since you insist on being pedantic about spelling etc. please explain why you, incorrectly I should add, used an apostrophe in the word “comma’s” in your previous comment. Looking at some of your recent posts on the journal, I think you’re lucky there’s no punishment for poor grammar.
Louise, since you insist on being pedantic about spelling etc. please explain why you, incorrectly I should add, used an apostrophe in the word “comma’s” in your previous comment. Looking at some of your recent posts on the journal, I’d say you’re lucky there’s no punishment for poor grammar.
I’d like to say that the nationalist and neo-Nazi groups that have been catfishing young gay men and boys into meetings actually go much farther then just taunting them, many of the victims are beaten, subjected to sexual humiliation and urinated on and afterwards the police do nothing. The youngest victims of this where only 12.
Remember that in Russia’s highly homophobic culture, the fact that they are then outed on the internet can be as dangerous, many of the victims are minors and hence can be subject to abuse from their families or become homeless or be forced into “reparative therapy” where they are tortured or brainwashed into acting straight.
I’m amazed that in light of all the coverage of the calls for a boycott of the winter Olympics, no mainstream news network has reported on this.
If you want more info, here’s a report from Pink News:
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/07/26/russia-gay-teenagers-tortured-and-made-to-come-out-on-video-by-militant-anti-paedophilia-group/
“Pink News”, a reliable source….not.
Do you have any evidence that by Joseph Patrick McCormick who wrote the article linked to above or the Russian LGBT activists that originally brought this to light are lying?
In this day and age when shit like this still continues to happen you really question the hope for the human race. Being fined for ‘nontraditional sexual behavior’, a tax on divorce, forcing people to stay in an unhappy marriage is just ridiculous. We should indeed be lobbying our own Olympic committee to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics. This is just getting out of hand.
Here is one country I won’t be visiting on my holidays
If beauty is only skin deep then that woman has her skin on inside out. She sure preaches an evil line.
What’s the Russian word for “Geebag”?
Gee Bagski
2013′s very own Josef Goebells
Wench
This is a great website – http://putinarainbow.com/
Sick sick individual
Evil old bag. Sadly, I’ll bet there are plenty of equally evilly-inclined morons right here who would love to impose her brand of poison on Irish society. Those of them reading this will probably use the red-thumb facility.
One of the reason we have a crisis in masculinity is the existence of such departments. Men are pushed into privileged lives in society and such departments are the classic example of hegemony and the insidious nature of how civil society accepts such narrow and discriminative traditional family structures, gender roles and norms/practice re; a person’s affective live, caring self and position in the family and public spaces….
She looks like Herman Van Rompuy wearing a wig.
Is this a laugh or what?
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