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In recent columns, I have compared Australia’s progress on gay and lesbian equality to the United States, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and South Africa.
In doing so, I have been unfair on the Australian Government. This week I measure our nation’s progress against that great bulwark of equality, Russia.

Russia has an abysmal record when it comes to protecting and upholding the rights of gays and lesbians. Homosexuality was only legalised in 1993.

Each year gays and lesbians are bashed, killed or imprisoned because of their sexuality. They face persecution by neo-Nazis, by ultranationalists and by the Government. Moscow’s mayor, Yury Luzhkov, recently described gay pride parades as -Ëœsatanic’.
Last Saturday, in Moscow, marchers hoped to draw attention to human rights abuses of gays and lesbians by attempting their annual march on the day of the Eurovision finals. City authorities shut down the parade before it began. Forty people were arrested.
In Australia, we are doing much better.  Although homophobic violence is still a problem, we have the protection of the law, we are not persecuted by our own government, and 72 percent of the electorate believe we should have equal rights.

In Moscow last week, a lesbian couple presented themselves at a marriage registration office, only to be told by an official, According to article 12 of the family codex, for a marriage to be sanctioned it is necessary to have the mutual and voluntary agreement of a man and a woman.

On 27 May 2004, in Canberra, the then Attorney-General Philip Ruddock introduced the Marriage Amendment Bill 2004, to exclude same-sex couples from the institution of marriage.  With the ALP’s support, the bill became law. That law remains in force.

Emily Gray is co-convenor of the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby.