Georgian parliament approves law limiting LGBTQ+ rights

Teflis. Georgia’s parliament on Tuesday approved a law restricting the rights of LGBTQ+ people similar to one passed in neighbouring Russia.

The bill, submitted by the ruling Georgian Dream party, includes bans on same-sex marriages, adoptions by gay couples and public displays of approval of LGBTQ+ relationships or people, and mentioning them in the media. It also prohibits gender-affirming healthcare and changing gender designations on official documents.

The Orthodox Church wields great influence in Georgia, and anti-LGBTQ+ protests are common. Last year, hundreds of gay rights opponents stormed an LGBTQ+ festival in the Georgian capital, forcing the event to be cancelled. This year, tens of thousands of people marched in Tbilisi to promote “traditional family values.”

“Traditional family values” are also a cornerstone of the Kremlin narrative in Russia, where authorities have banned public support for “non-traditional sexual relations” over the past decade, among other measures. Russia’s Supreme Court has effectively banned all pro-LGBTQ+ activism, saying there is an LGBTQ+ “movement” in Russia that the government has declared illegal and labelled an extremist organisation.

The new initiative was announced by Georgian Dream shortly after the country adopted another measure that critics say is copied from Russia: the law against “foreign influence.” The measure requires media outlets and non-governmental organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as organizations that “pursue the interests of a foreign power.”

The law has sparked protests and been widely criticized as threatening democratic freedoms and calling into question Georgia’s eventual membership in the European Union. The South Caucasus nation of 3.7 million people formally applied to join in 2022 following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but the bloc halted its accession in response to the “foreign influence” law and froze some of its financial support. The United States imposed sanctions on dozens of Georgian officials in response to the law.

The anti-LGBTQ+ bill was approved in its third and final reading, with 84 out of 150 lawmakers voting in favour. It now needs to be signed by President Salome Zourabichvili.