Putin introduces constitutional amendments mentioning God and banning same-sex marriage

Russian State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin announced on March 2 that President Vladimir Putin introduced new changes to his planned constitutional reforms in advance of the Duma’s second vote on the bill.

Vice Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy added that the changes include a constitutional measure defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, Interfax reported. The independent outlet Dozhd summarized other changes, including a measure recognizing the role of the Russian ethnos in the formation of the Russian state and a clause defining the Russian Federation as the successor state of the Soviet Union. According to Interfax, these accompany other measures regarding national unity and sovereignty, including a section condemning separatism and secession and a clause enabling federal republics to establish official languages alongside Russian.

Yet another amendment would include the word God in Russia’s foundational legal document. Volodin read that language aloud to reporters: “The Russian Federation, united by a thousand-year history and in testament to the memory of its ancestors, who gave us our ideals and our faith in God as well as the continuous development of the Russian state, recognizes this historically formed governmental unit.”