Speaking with a visiting Russian delegation a few days ago about gay and lesbian rights reminded Portland City Councilor Ed Suslovic of debates that happened in Maine more than a decade ago.
“I was having a flashback to about 15 years ago, when some of the same conversations were taking place in Maine, like are these civil rights or special rights?” said Suslovic, who said the issue was raised in a general discussion of civil rights Thursday during a meeting of officials from Portland and a group from Archangel, Russia, Portland’s sister city.
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Those debates were eventually settled in Maine, with protections of the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people added to Maine’s civil rights laws and the legalization of same-sex marriage in the state in 2012.
But Russia recently passed a bill banning “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations,” a move that has worried LGBT activists in the United States and elsewhere, particularly with the Winter Olympic Games scheduled to start in Russia in a few months.
In Portland, some called on the city to end its sister city arrangement with Archangel, which dates back 25 years. But Suslovic said both groups reiterated during the Russian delegation’s nine-day trip to Maine that they want the connection to continue.
“No good would come out of severing our relationship,” he said.
Suslovic said he was asked to act as spokesman about Thursday’s meeting, which he said was, at times, difficult.
Attempts to reach members of Archangel’s delegation, which left Sunday to return to Russia, were not successful.
Suslovic said he and other Americans at the meeting felt they had to walk a careful line between discussing the benefits of greater openness in discussions of LGBT rights and seeming to lecture their guests. And, he said, members of the Portland delegation were aware that the U.S. still has laws that other nations view as violations of human rights.
“It certainly was not any of our place … to sit and lecture (the Russians) because, for example, the U.S. still has the death penalty,” he said.
The Russians, he said, explained that many in their society don’t feel comfortable discussing sexual orientation openly.
“In general, Russian society and Russian culture isn’t there,” Suslovic said.
The Russians indicated that they’re aware of the opposition of many around the world to their “propaganda” law, Suslovic said, but they maintained that it’s aimed at keeping children from being involved in public discussions of sexual orientation.
Suslovic said his general message to the Russians was that much can be gained from discussing sexual orientation and civil rights more openly.
“My hope for them is that they find a way to bring the issue out in the open,” he said. “Hopefully, they won’t take as many years as we took.”
Edward D. Murphy can be contacted at 791-6465 or at:
emurphy@pressherald.com
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