Russian Pro-Morality Bill Passes: The West is Aghast

Edit: in case you haven't seen this.

MOSCOW, June 11 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s lower house of parliament on Tuesday gave its final approval for a controversial “anti-gay” bill, with only one of the 436 lawmakers present abstaining and no votes against, after a day of clashes outside the building and dozens of arrests by police. 

The bill seeks to ban the “the promotion of non-traditional sexual relationships,” making such acts punishable by a fine of up to 1 million rubles ($30,000). 

The first draft of the bill, passed by the State Duma on January 25, used the term “homosexuality” but this was replaced by the term “non-traditional sexual relationships,” in the final version Tuesday.

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A similar movement collapsed in Romania, however. (Surely, EU membership  threats loom somewhere on the horizon, and well, Romanians aren't Hungarians, they're not even Russians.) I found the following from the aforelinked blog, at a Political Refugee in the Global Village, which shows the determined lack of direction and conviction which typically stymies most people, unfortunately, especially churchmen, from making definitive and clear cut statements.  Auden may have struggled with sin, but he wasn't a "practicing homosexual" and he certainly didn't quibble about calling a sin a sin, either.  Understandably, as those of us with strong connections to people suffering from various kinds of sins in the Dictatorship of Relativism, we tend to waffle.  I think Auden would have objected to being called out thusly. Italics ours:

I hope this constitutional amendment  becomes law but doubt it will, simply for fear of foreign opinion.  

I do not want to be pharisaical or victimise homosexuals. As the cliché goes, many of my best friends are homosexuals (they really are). We are all fallen creatures, thoroughly imperfect, but because we break the rules this does not mean the rules about fornication, adultery and divorce  are wrong. I prefer what W.H. Auden, a practicing homosexual and a practicing Christian, said: 'Of course its a sin and we must hope that God will forgive us.'  Homosexual marriage would be a public recognition by the law that what Christianity teaches about sexual life was out of date and bigoted. It would also mean that marriage had changed in its essential meaning.  

Romanians used to be shocked by homosexuality (as by smoking joints and other things which are pretty normal further West). Now they are learning slowly from the EU that Christian teaching on the matter is bigoted. In other words, the old doctrine is a sin against the new human rights religion which seems to complement but is, in fact, replacing Christianity.