Belarus drafts law punishing the promotion of LGBT+ relationships News
© WikiMedia (texx1978)
Belarus drafts law punishing the promotion of LGBT+ relationships

The Prosecutor General of Belarus, Andrei Shved, announced Monday that the government has been preparing a bill that would punish the promotion of what they deem to be non-traditional relationships in a move targeted at LGBTQ+ unions. He stated that it was important to not even allow the discussion of the topic and that opponents were attempting to destroy traditional family values and, by extension, Belarus as a nation.

The announcement was made at the joint meeting of the House of Representatives and the Council of the Republic. The bill would establish liability for the promotion of “abnormal relationships, pedophilia and voluntary refusal to have children.” According to the Shved, the bill is already going through the approval procedure.

While it has been legal to be homosexual in Belarus since 1994, there are no safeguards to protect discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, and same-sex unions are not recognized. LGBTQ+ rights in the country are practically non-existent, with people facing extreme violence and persecution. Rainbow Europe ranked the country 45th out of 49 European countries in terms of their treatment of LGBTQ+ individuals. This latest announcement shows that the Belarusian government is becoming increasingly hostile to LGBTQ+ people. The move will have a severe effect on freedom of expression in the country and mirrors similar legislation that exists in Russia.

THIS DAY @ LAW

President Johnson signed law against burning draft cards

On August 31, 1965, President Johnson signed a law making the burning of draft cards a federal offense subject to a five-year prison sentence and $1000 fine. In response to the law and in protest of the war in Vietnam, the student-run National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam staged the first public burning of a draft card in the United States on October 15, 1965. The constitutionality of the federal law was upheld in 1968 by the US Supreme Court in US v. O'Brien.

Gdansk Agreement reached

On August 31, 1980, the communist government of Poland and labor leaders settled the Gdansk Agreement. The accord settled a summer of labor strikes at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland. With the Agreement, Poland became the first communist country to allow the creation of an independent labor union, which was called Solidarity. Solidarity then became the driving force that ended communism in Poland. Learn more about the history of Solidarity.