Evert van Vlastuin: What Putin and the left get wrong about same-sex marriage

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is August 22nd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next: the politics of same-sex marriage in Europe.

Evert van Vlastuin spent 30 years as a journalist in the Netherlands before founding Christian News Europe in 2021. That’s an Christian news website written in English but covering news across the European continent.

Last month, van Vlastuin spoke at WJI-Europe, our World Journalism Institute held in Brussels, Belgium. While there, he recorded this commentary about the influence of the president of Russia on the same-sex marriage debate in Europe.

EVERT VAN VLASTUIN, COMMENTATOR: Promoting gay marriage is a way to fight against the Russians, or at least, so said a left-wing politician in Estonia last June. It is a good question whether this is right or not.

By using such a frame, the Estonian politician says all of us who defend traditional marriage are part of Putin’s camp. And since Putin is a threat to Europe, all traditionalists are a danger to peace. Well, that is quite an aggressive way to delegitimize the other position.

There is no doubt the vote in Estonia to allow same-sex marriage introduces a new era. Until recently, all the former Soviet countries upheld marriage as between a man and a woman. But this year the former Yugoslav republic, Slovenia, became the first country from the Eastern Block to open marriage to homosexuals. We know from debates in other countries that Slovenia and Estonia will not be the last.

Regarding some family values, it’s true that the Russian-influenced east is more conservative than the west. Many eastern countries have defined marriage in their constitution as a relationship between one man and one woman, sometimes as a reaction against liberal tendencies. And many conservatives in Western Europe admire Poland and Hungary, since those countries stick to their traditional position against more liberal countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has tried to exploit this view. He says his fight in Ukraine is against the Western values of sexual depravity. The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, even claimed Putin’s war was launched to stop gay pride parades.

As for The European Union, it has no formal position on many of these issues. Many Protestants and Catholics have tried to enshrine Christian values in a European constitution, but liberals are winning at the moment. Most recently, the European Court of Human Rights ordered both Romania and Ukraine to legislate for civic partnership for homosexuals.

That said, it might be wise to reject part of the left’s and Putin’s framework. In some aspects, Central and Eastern European countries can be very liberal.

Let’s take abortion. Countries behind the Iron Curtain legalized the termination of pregnancies much sooner than Western Europe. And their abortion numbers are still higher, with Poland being the only exception. In Hungary, even the so-called Conservative-Christian government has done nothing substantial to limit the liberal abortion law.

If Putin and Kirill are fond of family values, they have enough work to do in their own country. Until the war in Ukraine started, there was a flourishing child surrogacy ‘industry’ in Russia, Georgia, and Ukraine. And according to some reports, Russia’s divorce rate is the highest in Europe, followed by Belarus and Ukraine. Of course, the state cannot just force parents to stay together. But the government can do much to stimulate help. Unlike Putin’s war, that would be an investment in both happiness and values.

I’m Evert van Vlastuin.

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