Russia Bans Adoption by Single People Too

The Russian government doesn’t seem to care about bad press – or maybe they think the Opening Ceremony went so well it doesn’t matter what they do. The Kremlin has tightened restrictions on a law passed in 2013 that made it illegal for same sex couples adopt Russian children.

Last summer, President Putin signed a law banning the adoption of children by gay couples. The year before, the country passed their anti-gay propaganda law. This new law, signed by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, is actually slight tweak of the old one. It expands its power to cover single men and women who live in countries where gay marriage is legal. At the beginning of 2013, all American families, regardless of marriage status or sexual orientation, were told they were not allowed to adopt children from Russia.

RT reports that a note on a Russian government website says the ban, like the old one, seeks:

…to guarantee a full and harmonious development for adopted children and to safeguard their psyche and consciousness from possible unwanted influence such as artificial forcing of non-traditional sexual behavior and the suffering, complexes and stresses that, according to psychologists’ studies, are often experienced by kids raised in same-sex families.

This law seems to be a way to prevent children from being adopted by single people who are secretly gay or single people who have been corrupted by their country’s gay agenda. Or it’s just an acknowledgment that single people can’t take care of children like a good, stable, traditional, man-woman marriage. Globe and Mail reporter Mark MacKinnon tweeted earlier that the LGBT Russians he’d “talked to knew this law was coming, but felt Kremlin wouldn’t go ahead until #Sochi2014 over.” So ballsy. So cool.