FILE - LGBT activists hold their flag at a rally to collect signatures to cancel the results of voting on amendments to the Constitution in Pushkin Square in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, July 15, 2020. Georgia’s ruling party on Tuesday introduced draft legislation curtailing LGBTQ+ rights.
If adopted, the bill will ban same-sex marriages, gender-affirming care and changing one’s gender marker in the official documents, adoption by same-sex couples, public endorsement of same-sex relations at gatherings and at educational institutions, and depiction of same-sex relations in the media. The new initiative was announced by parliament speaker and Georgian Dream member Shalva Papuashvili just a day after he signed the “foreign influence” law into force.
The “foreign influence” law requires news media and nongovernmental organizations to register as “agents of foreign influence” if they receive more than 20% of their budget from abroad. It set offGeorgia’s President Salome Zourabichvili vetoed the bill, but the parliament overrode her veto, and on Monday Papuashvili signed it into the law.
Georgian Dream’s proposals curtailing LGBTQ+ rights could also draw comparisons to laws in place in Russia. The Russian authorities over the last decade also banned