The “Family Values” bill is passed despite opposition from the President, human rights groups and the European Union.
Georgian politicians have approved the third and final reading of a law on “family values and youth protection” that would impose sweeping restrictions on LGBTQ rights.
The bill passed on Tuesday would give authorities a legal basis to ban Pride events and the public display of the LGBTQ rainbow flag, and to impose censorship on films and books.
In addition, it prohibits gender reassignment surgery and adoption by homosexuals and transgender people and declares same-sex marriages concluded abroad on Georgian territory invalid.
In a vote boycotted by the opposition, politicians from the ruling Georgian Dream party voted 84-0 in favor of the bill, along with related amendments to a number of other laws.
Representatives of the ruling Georgian Dream party say this is necessary to protect “traditional moral values” in Georgia, where the deeply conservative Orthodox Church has great influence.
Tamara Jakeli, head of the campaign group Tbilisi Pride, said the bill, which also reaffirms an existing ban on same-sex marriage and prohibits gender reassignment surgery, would likely force her organization to close.
“This law is the worst thing that can happen to the LGBT community in Georgia,” Jakeli, 28, told Reuters. “We will most likely have to close. We cannot continue working.”
Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili, whose powers are largely ceremonial, is critical of the Georgian Dream and has indicated that she will block the law.
However, Georgian Dream and its allies have enough seats in parliament to override their veto.
In Georgia, LGBTQ rights are a sensitive issue. Polls show widespread disapproval of same-sex relationships and the constitution prohibits same-sex marriage.
Participants in Tbilisi's annual Pride marches have been physically attacked by anti-LGBTQ protesters in recent years.
The issue has gained prominence ahead of the upcoming elections on October 26, in which the Georgian Dream party is seeking a fourth term and is fighting massively against the rights of the LGBTQ community.
The ruling party, whose leading candidate is billionaire and former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, has deepened its ties with neighboring Russia as relations with Western countries have deteriorated.
Earlier this year, Georgia passed a “foreign agent” law that critics in Europe and the United States said was authoritarian and Russian-inspired. Its passage sparked some of the largest protests Georgia has seen since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Opinion polls suggest the party, which passed a law in 2014 outlawing discrimination against LGBTQ people before later adopting more conservative positions, remains the most popular in Georgia, although it has lost ground since 2020, when it gained a narrow majority in parliament.
In a ruling party advert broadcast on Georgian television, the face of Pride director Jakeli can be seen next to the words: “No to moral humiliation.”
The European Union has said that the adoption of the law will have a “significant impact” on Tbilisi's path of EU integration and will “put a further strain on EU-Georgia relations”.
“The EU recalls that Georgia's accession process has de facto come to a standstill and urges the authorities to re-embark on the path of EU integration,” the EU said.
