Carte-blanche: Sex as an Issue in Geopolitics

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled to recognize same-sex marriage as legal throughout the whole country. Five justices ruled in favor; four against. This is a historic decision for America; in his written opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy argued that the right of same-sex couples to enter into marriage is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

Of course, it is useful to recall that as recently as 2003, the same Supreme Court rejected laws concerning same-sex marriage. This ruling is also the court’s most important decision pertaining to family rights since 1967, when laws prohibiting interracial marriage were struck down. Of course, this is significant progress for America, if you take into account that such racial laws existed neither in Europe nor Russia.

In the present context, however, I am not interested in the domestic political aspects of the Supreme Court’s ruling. It is clear that Democrats, including current U.S. President Barack Obama and the next likely Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, welcome the decision. On the other hand, many conservative-minded Americans are opposed.

What could be the external political consequences of the ruling? It is worth recalling that back in February, in anticipation of this decision, the U.S. created a new special envoy for gay rights. Announcing the decision, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that “defending and promoting the human rights of LGBT persons is at the core of our commitment to advancing human rights globally.”

The first appointee to the position was career diplomat Randy Berry, who had previously served as consul general to the Netherlands. Berry will fight for a world “free from violence and discrimination” against the LGBT community and formulate and coordinate American strategy on the issue, Kerry explained. There still remain too many countries, he argued, in which gays, bisexuals and transgender people are “threatened, jailed and prosecuted because of who they are or who they love.”

The opinion that has spread in the West is that Russia is characterized by homophobic attitudes, cultivated on a soil of ignorance and traditional ideas, which are actively supported by the political regime. This, in part, was the message of the German publication Deutsche Welle, whose correspondent recently met with representatives of the St. Petersburg organization Coming Out, which supports members of the LGBT community and their parents. Members of this NGO discussed with DW why Russian society does not accept homosexuals.

I cannot agree with this thesis, insofar as I know representatives of the LGBT community who occupy visible positions in Russian society. I would distinguish in this case truly traditional values. They are connected primarily with the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in contemporary Russia. This role was formed over the course of many centuries and corresponded to the objective conditions of social development. Therefore, the church seamlessly filled the ideological vacuum left after the collapse of the Communist value system. And I believe that its role in modern Russia will likely grow due to the peculiarities of our society’s development.

In his own time, German Chancellor Bismarck wrote about “the traditional Russian policy, which was based partly on community of faith and partly on blood relationship.” And I think that the terminology “common Russian home and Russian community” must be understood in this meaning, and without the Russian Orthodox Church, it has no meaning. As is well known, the Russian Orthodox Church adheres to traditional ideas regarding family values.

In this context, the recent communication from the church’s Department for External Church Relations serves as an example. The communication mentioned the Church of Scotland’s decision about the possibility of ordaining ministers who are in same-sex marriages, as well as the decision by France’s United Protestant Church to bless so-called same-sex unions. According to the church’s statement, “these decisions of the Protestant Churches of Scotland and France have deeply disappointed the Russian Orthodox Church as they seem incompatible with norms of Christian morality. We state with profound grief that today we have new divisions in the Christian world not only on theological problems, but also on the moral issues. The Russian Orthodox Church holds the firm position based on Holy Scriptures and has repeatedly declared that the mentioned innovations were inadmissible for moral teaching and thus is ought to reconsider a format of her relations with the churches and associations which trample upon the principles of traditional Christian morality.”

We can see that the conflict between the West and Russia has reached a new level. And from this vantage point, instances of persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church, such as in Belgium, where attempts have been made to expropriate church property under a lawsuit filed by former shareholders of Yukos, begin to seem not so accidental.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision will have far-reaching geopolitical consequences and will intensify tensions between Russia and the West, insofar as there remains no doubt that the concept of equal rights for individuals of nontraditional sexual orientations will emerge as a key issue in international politics. It is a pity that the hostages in this confrontation could be the very same people whose rights are being fought over in Washington. And they are not few in number. After all, according to statistics, those born with nontraditional sexual orientations make up approximately 4.5 percent of mankind.