Russia recognises GAY marriage!

Russia has recognised a gay marriage for the first time, in a move which shocked even the newlyweds involved.

Eugene Wojciechowski and Pavel Stotsko tied the knot on January 4 in Copenhagen, Denmark, in matching bow-ties. 
When they returned to Russia, they hoped – but did not expect – that their union would be seen as legal in their home country.

To their shock and delight, a government employee in Moscow stamped their passports with official confirmation of the marriage – and it took just five minutes.

The news is as surprising as it is welcome, coming just weeks after research found that 83 percent of Russians think it’s “always reprehensible” or “almost always reprehensible” for two adults to have gay sex.

This marked a drastic increase from 1998, when just 68 percent found it unacceptable, and even 2008, when 76 percent found it unacceptable.

Wojciechowski and Stotsko, speaking to independent Russian channel TV Rain, said that the staff member drew up the doents to validate their marriage “without superfluous questions.”

“He did not even change his expression,” they added.

According to Russian law, weddings conducted abroad are legitimate if there is nothing “preventing the conclusion of marriage specified in Article 14 of the Family Code.”

This rule seems to contain a loophole which the newlyweds have taken advantage of.

It states that marriages cannot be approved if they are between close relatives or adoptive parents and adopted children, or if one spouse is already married or unable to make a decision for themselves because they are severely mentally ill. 

Nothing in the law states that same-sex unions constitute a disqualifying factor.

There is a line saying that for the marriage to be recognised, “the mutual voluntary consent of the man and woman entering in marriage” is required.

But when TV Rain questioned the Moscow office where Wojciechowski and Stotsko had their marriage approved, the press officer was unable to clear up the point.

“Your question would make sense if the Russian Federation’s Family Code used a different formulation,” they said.

“For example, ‘voluntary consent of persons entering into marriage.’

“Further discussion of your issue I think is inexpedient,” they concluded, without clarifying much of anything.

In 2014, a marriage between a cisgender woman and transgender woman was recognised in St. Petersburg.

However, this was only because the trans woman had not been able to change her gender identity on official doents, meaning the government saw the marriage as heterosexual.

Last year, it was found that hate crimes against LGBT people have doubled since Russia created a law banning gay “propaganda”.

The law also bans people from sharing “distorted ideas about the equal social value of traditional and non-traditional sexual relationships”.

It has been widely abused by Vladimir Putin’s government to clamp down on the LGBT rights movement as a whole.

Text: Pinknews UK

What this shows is how difficult it is for Russia to maintain anti-LGBT policies that are completely at odds with the rest of the West.

Countries have to recognize marriages performed elsewhere because if they didn't chaos would ensue. Travel would be impossible if, say, a British husband and wife were no longer married as soon as their plane touched down in St Petersburg. You have to uphold foreign marriages just to have a coherent legal system.

For anti-gay places, legal same-sex marriage throws a big political rock into the legal machinery. US states knew this all the way back in the 1990's when the state of Hawaii courts said that gay couples must be allowed the same access to marriage as straight couples. Every other state suddenly woke up to the realization that if a gay couple married in Hawaii, they would automatically be forced to recognize it. They could outlaw gay marriage in their own state, but they couldn't prevent couples married elsewhere from moving in and being recognized.

Russia is in a similar position. The normal laws that allow the British husband and wife tourist to still be married while on holiday in Russia, also means that a Russian male couple married outside the country is still legally married inside Russia.

If they don't want that to happen, then they will have to take extraordinary measures to specifically rule out same-sex couples. (Without also causing unforseen difficulties elsewhere in the legal system.) As the US states found out, this is harder than it sounds.

So, bravo for Wojciechowski and Stotsko and hopefully this will start a thriving destination wedding business for the rest of Europe.

Russia brings charges against same-sex couple who received landmark recognition of marriage
A Russian same-sex couple who had their marriage recognized after finding an apparent legal loophole have been charged with "intentional damage to passports or negligence".

Eugene Wojciechowski and Paul Stotzko tied the knot in Denmark on 4 January and returned home to Russia, where their doents were stamped and approved, despite same-sex marriage being illegal in the country.

Speaking to the independent Russian channel TV Rain, the couple said their marital status had been validated by a member of staff “without superfluous questions”.
However, the press office of the Moscow Department of the Interior has announced the two men now face charges regarding their doentation, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

“With respect to men who initiated marking in their passports of citizens of the Russian Federation not provided for by the current legislation, cases were brought about administrative offences provided for in Article 19.16 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation,” it announced.
"Article 19.16 of the Administrative Code on 'deliberate damage to doents' entails a warning or an administrative fine in the amount of 100 to 300 rubles," Interfax reported.

Mr Wojciechowski and Mr Stotzko told TV Rain the officer who stamped their passports, which contained their updated marriage status, “did not even change his expression” when he saw their doents.

Russia does not register same-sex marriages, but according to Russian law, marriages conducted abroad are deemed legitimate if there is nothing contradicting “Article 14 of the Family Code”.
The article appears to contain a loophole as it prohibits marriages between close relatives and people who have already been registered as married, but does not state same-sex unions constitute as a disqualifying factor.

There is a line stating the “mutual voluntary consent of the man and woman entering in marriage” is required to validate the union.

However, the press officer at the Moscow office where Mr Wojciechowski and Mr Stotsko had their marriage approved did not tell TV Rain a mistake had been made.

He said: “Your question would make sense if the Russian Federation’s Family Code used a different formulation, for example, ‘voluntary consent of persons entering into marriage.’”