During a discussion on Russian national identity, President Vladimir Putin made sure to politely but firmly reject any notion of replacing traditional family structures with more “progressive” examples implemented in the West.
“You said the word ‘mother’ cannot be replaced. Turns out maybe it can: they’ve replaced it in some countries with ‘Parent number one’ and ‘Parent number two.’ I hope that never happens here,” Putin said Friday at the meeting of the Council for Interethnic Relations, a Kremlin advisory body.
His remarks came in response to lawmaker Viktor Vodolatsky, who talked about efforts to cultivate a unifying identity among Russia’s youth without infringing on any other ethnic, religious or group identities. The words “mother” and “parent” are functionally the same, but carried a very different emotional weight, Vodolatsky argued, just like “motherland” and “country.”
Vladimir Putin, today: "You said the word mother 'can't be replaced.' It turns out, perhaps, it can. In some countries, they now have 'parent number one' and 'parent number two.' I hope we never have that (in Russia).”pic.twitter.com/O7mS7YNtfI
Smiling as he replied, Putin may as well have winked and nudged in the westerly direction. One notable place where motherhood and fatherhood had been replaced in the name of “social equality” is France, where in February the school forms were updated to “Parent 1” and “Parent 2” in order to reflect new “family diversity.”
Certain families were finding themselves stuck in “rather old-fashioned social and family models,” Valérie Petit, MP with President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party REM, said in February.
A similar measure was underway in Italy, but Deputy PM Matteo Salvini restored “mother” and “father” on government forms in April. It is unclear where the proposal may be on the agenda of the current government, which was put together in September to shut out Salvini without an election, in yet another display of EU democracy at its finest.
Not surprisingly, it was the US that led the way in “progressive” bureaucrat-speak, with the State Department announcing that it would replace “mother” and “father” on passport applications in 2011, during the Obama administration. Brenda Sprague, deputy assistant secretary for passport services at the time, argued that this was due to “changes in medical science and reproductive technology.”
LGBT activist group Family Equality Council left no doubt about the move’s motives, however, cheering the change to a “more global term” that would allow “many different types of families” to feel recognized. This was four years before the US Supreme Court established same-sex marriages as a constitutional right, mind you.
To be fair, mothers and fathers weren’t entirely replaced on State Department forms. The current ones have two entries for “Mother/Father/Parent,” which is clearly unacceptable discrimination against children of throuples and other polyamorous relationships, who still remain unfairly illegal under oppressive US laws.
While Western “human rights” groups may be girding their loins to condemn Putin’s remarks as yet another example of “oppression” in Russia, they should hold their horses before cashing those lobbying checks. In the meeting, he also talked about welcoming and acceptance of immigrants, condemnation of “ignorance and extremism,” and support for Russia’s indigenous peoples – who live in better shape and in far larger numbers than Native Americans, it should be said.
That would complicate the virtue-signaling morality plays that pay their bills, though, so we shouldn’t hold our breath.
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