Petrelis Files

Gay Russian Leader Praises Yeltsin For Sodomy Law Repeal

The death of former Russian leader Boris Yeltsin yesterday jogged my memory about something positive he did for gays, and that was to decriminalize sodomy.

Almost 14 years ago, on April 29, 1993, Yeltsin signed a decree that repealed Article 121.1 of the Russian criminal code from the books, which banned consensual homosexual relations. One news account from that time said gay men in prison for violating the sodomy were to be released from penal institutions.

In May 2006, the head of the Human Rights Watch's gay unit, Scott Long, traveled to Moscow to participate in a controversial gay rights march organized by Nikolai Alekseev, and Long had an interesting take on Yeltsin's rapid repeal of Article 121.1:

[It] may have been unfortunate for Russia’s LGBT movement (however fortunate for Russian society as a whole) that Yeltsin repealed the sodomy law so early and so quickly, by decree. There had been little domestic mobilization against it. The movement was deprived of the one issue that could have given it unity and direction. And Russian lesbians and gays were given the partly illusory feeling of freedom, able to lead their lives without immediate fear of arrest, to visit bars and websites and construct cocoons of consumer satisfaction without facing the deeper forces of prejudice and patriarchy in their society and families and homes.

Yeltsin's passing is, of course, being noted by Russia's bravest gay leader Nikolai Alekseev, who issued the following statement on his GayRussia web site:

On Monday 23 April we lost first President of Russia Boris Yeltsin, a man who, risking his life, gave freedom to us, a man, who underpinned democratic values of contemporary Russia.

Russian gay community will always remember Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin as a man who put an end to almost sixty years of criminal prosecution for male homosexual relations. The law that he signed in April 1993 came into force on 27 May 1993. This day entered into Russian history of LGBT movement. 27 May was chosen as the date for the conduct of the first ever gay pride march in Moscow last year.

Boris Yeltsin is a whole epoch in Russia’s history. He is a man who will always be remembered by our descendants, irrespective of the future development of Russia.

His name is forever written into the history of free and democratic Russia.

When such people as Boris Yeltsin leaving this world everything is shaking inside. Democratic Russia is losing its best people. It is sad that no one is coming to replace them.

First President of Russia made enough mistakes during his long political career but he found strength to apologize to his country. Who else left the highest position in the country with his own will? Who else in Russia said sorry for the political mistakes? Boris Nikolaevich had courage almost alone not only to destroy totalitarian system but also to ask for forgiveness for everything that was not done properly, for the promises that were not realized.

It is frightening to lose such people, it is twice more frightening to lose such people in one of the critical turning points of Russia’s history, when the country is once again at the crossroads of democracy and dictatorship.

Boris Yeltsin gave Russian people freedom, but people, unfortunately, did not learn how to value it. And still there is a hope that Russia will not turn from the democratic way though it is becoming more and more obvious that the country reached some kind of irreversible point which the first Russia’s President, devoted to liberty, was not able to outlive.

Let him rest in peace! Boris Yeltsin will always stay in our hearts!