Russian Government Withdraws Proposed Anti-Gay Bill

Though in recent months Russia has given the green light to some highly publicized anti-gay measures which have dramatically harmed the country's LGBT community, Russian government officials have withdrawn a proposed bill on Saturday that would ban same-sex couples from raising children by taking the children from their homes, BuzzFeed reports.

LGBT activists discovered that the bill was withdrawn when it was listed as such on the State Duma's website. A spokesperson for Alexei Zhuravlyov, the uber conservative politician who tabled the bill, confirmed that the measure had been withdrawn but added it would be resubmitted after some changes were made.

"It's being recalled for revision - certain legal formulations will be clarified, and then after some points are removed, it will be brought to the State Duma again. We hope to pass the bill," Sofia Cherepanova, Zhuravlyov's spokesperson, told state-run news agency RIA-Novosti.

BuzzFeed reports that Elena Mizulina, the sponsor for Russia's highly controversial "homosexual propaganda" law who is also a proponent for the country's anti-LGBT campaign, has stated she did not think the measure taking children away from same-sex parents would have "any chances" of being passed because "I cannot imagine how to sort families based on whether they are homosexual or not."

"The decision to withdraw the bill comes one month after it cleared a bureaucratic hurdle that puts it on the agenda to be considered as soon as February 2014," BuzzFeed writes. "That is the month that Russia is set to host the Winter Olympics in Sochi - something that has already pointed global attention to the country's abysmal record on LGBT rights."