What’s Behind Russia’s Latest Bill To Ban All Forms Of LGBT+ Propaganda?

It’s not hyperbole to claim that the New Cold War is about the future of humanity as a whole. Everyone will either be forced to eventually implement the Golden Billion’s ideologically radical models in all respects or they’ll retain their sovereign right to rule themselves however their societies and states deem fit. There’s no middle ground in this zero-sum competition between the West and Russia respectively, which will inevitably result in clear-cut winners and losers.

TASS reported on Thursday that the Duma unanimously passed the first reading of a bill banning all propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations in absolutely all respects. Prior legislation had only banned such materials from being shared with minors, but the new piece thereof will completely eliminate it from the public sphere regardless of whichever age group is being targeted. Observers might naturally wonder what’s behind this latest move and whether it’s related to recent geostrategic events.

According to the cited report, Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin is quoted as saying that the latest move is a response to a huge number of requests from the citizenry demanding that the state ban anything that threatens to destroy their country’s society and traditional family values. Nevertheless, the larger context in which this legislation is being advanced isn’t insignificant since the New Cold War that’s being fought by proxy in Ukraine has a major moral dimension that deserves to be touched upon.

The Russian perspective is that the US-led West’s Golden Billion is aggressively seeking to impose its unipolar liberal-globalist views onto everyone else irrespective of whether the targeted society largely rejects the ultra-radical values associated with their models, especially cultural ones. By contrast, the jointly BRICS- and SCO-led Global South of which Russia is a part embraces multipolar conservative-sovereigntist views that respect every society’s right to rule themselves however they deem fit.

Framed differently, the Golden Billion doesn’t acknowledge any other society’s sovereign right to manage their affairs in accordance with their traditions, instead forcing them through hook or by crook to adopt the West’s foreign models that sometimes also violate the recipient society’s religious beliefs. This is precisely the case when it comes to that civilization’s aggressive propagation of non-traditional sexual views, which are considered radical and even sacrilegious by many across the Global South.

To be clear, Russia doesn’t discriminate against people who identify with non-traditional genders or sexualities, but its society doesn’t want to tolerate that ultra-fringe minority aggressively propagating their views. Many have come to regard it as a form of Hybrid Warfare aimed at weakening the traditional values that serve as the foundation of their millennium-old civilization-state’s multi-ethnic unity. Regardless of outsiders’ reaction to the aforesaid, that’s objectively how many Russians see it.

The moral dimension of the New Cold War is just as important as the geostrategic one since the former relates to rallying society in order to ensure domestic security while the latter concerns strengthening external security. Russia isn’t the only one focusing on the first-mentioned aspect either as evidenced by the Golden Billion’s obsession with the so-called “values” associated with their “rules-based order” concept. Unlike their opponent, however, they’re not sincere about what they stand for.

On the one hand, this civilization claims to support “democracy”, “free speech”, and “human rights”, while at the same time violently dispersing peaceful protests, censoring Russian media, and embracing anti-Russian hate speech. Quite clearly, what Western elites say that their side is fighting for in the Ukrainian Conflict – which is unquestionably a NATO proxy war on Russia at this point – isn’t the same as the policies that they apply at home.

By contrast, Russia truly does indeed apply the same policies at home as the values that it claims it’s fighting for in Ukraine. These can be summarized as its society’s sovereign right to rule themselves however they deem fit in accordance with their traditions, which in the context of this analysis concerns the legislative effort to ban all propaganda about non-traditional sexual relations. For as much as the West dislikes it, Russia has this right, the same as the West has the right to contradict its values at home.

Russia can detest the Golden Billion’s manipulative double standards within its own society as much as that civilization detests this newly restored world power’s latest initiative to ban LGBT+ propaganda. Their moral positions are irreconcilable precisely because this dimension figures as prominently in the New Cold War between them as the geostrategic, economic, and other ones do as well. Russia stands for sovereignty while the US-UK-EU axis is completely against this concept.

Briefly elaborating on this observation, sovereignty is just as much about civil society’s right to rule themselves in accordance with their traditions and other considerations as it is about each state’s right to ensure their objective interests. Russia respects these interconnected rights while the Golden Billion doesn’t even acknowledge them, instead believing that its related models are the best that humankind has ever created, hence their supremacist “civilizing mission” to impose them onto all others.

It's for this reason why it’s not hyperbole to claim that the New Cold War is about the future of humanity as a whole. Everyone will either be forced to eventually implement the Golden Billion’s ideologically radical models in all respects or they’ll retain their sovereign right to rule themselves however their societies and states deem fit. There’s no middle ground in this zero-sum competition between the West and Russia respectively, which will inevitably result in clear-cut winners and losers.