Georgia enacts law restricting LGBT+ rights

The declared opposition of the President of the Republic was not enough to prevent Georgia from promulgating a homophobic law. Circumventing the refusal of the Head of State to sign a text restricting the rights of LGBT+ people, the President of Parliament promulgated, Thursday October 3, a controversial law on “family values”. “In accordance with the Constitution, I signed today the law on family values ​​and the protection of minors which President Salomé Zourabichvili did not sign” Wednesday, Chalva Papuashvili, a member of the Georgian Dream party, announced on Facebook.

In Georgia, the presidency has limited powers unlike the Parliament which has broad prerogatives, including the possibility of signing the laws passed. After the law on“foreign influence” adopted in June by the government, this is the second promulgated text deemed liberticidal by the European Union and several NGOs. Voices rising to denounce the ambition of the ruling party to get closer to Russia, to the detriment of its European ambitions.

The party of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, the Georgian Dream, adopted the text in September during a vote boycotted by the opposition, further fueling tensions in the run-up to crucial legislative elections on October 26.

Similar to the text in force since December 2023 in Russia, the Georgian law prohibits “propaganda of homosexual relations and incest” in schools and television broadcasts, and also restricts “rallies and demonstrations”. Rights groups have criticized this formulation for equating incest and homosexuality.

It also prohibits gender reassignment, adoption by same-sex couples and transgender people and annuls same-sex marriages previously celebrated by Georgian citizens abroad.

The European Union estimated at the beginning of September that this document “violates the fundamental rights of Georgians and risks reinforcing the stigmatization and discrimination of part of the population.”