Arts | Acting Out
Russia Bans Adoption by Foreign Same-Sex Couples The Russian Lower House, the Duma, has approved a bill which saw changes to their own laws regarding adoption, and included the amendment to ban same-sex couples from adopting Russian children. The main bill is itself said to be an amendment to the law regarding the protection of orphans in Russia. The amendment not only bans adoption to same-sex couples, but also to individuals of countries where samesex marriage is legal. As the US is the principal adoptive country of Russian children, it will be most affected by the ban, as stateby-state, marriage between same-sex couples is gradually becoming the norm. France will also be affected, as it ranked fourth in adoptions of Russian children, and also had a bi-lateral agreement with Russia on adoption. The bill is ostensibly to give state help to Russian orphans and children deprived of parental support, according to news-site Russia Today (RT) and radically increases allowances to foster-parents. Those who wish to adopt a child in Russia will now have their compulsory medical tests paid for, and longer expiration dates for documents. These reforms also make the adoption process simpler for adoptive parents. RT reports that the idea to ban samesex adoptions in Russia only arose when France was debating legalising same-sex marriage. The bill was passed unanimously, by 444 MPs, and follows the recent bill to ban what has been termed “gay propaganda”. The law in Russia which regarded homosexuality as a criminal offence was only repealed in 1993.
LGBT Scriptwriters Wanted To celebrate National Coming Out Day in October, Acting Out, the LGBT drama group has been commissioned by the National Lesbian and Gay Federation to produce a piece on the theme of coming out. National Coming Out Day has been created to recognise how important the coming out process still is in terms of the visibility of the LGBT community, and to make the wider community aware of their role in making coming out not only as easy as possible, but helping it be cause for celebration. Acting Out wants: A short piece of drama (no more than 10 minutes long) on the theme of Coming Out. The piece could be a monologue or for up to a MAXIMUM of four characters. It can be sad, funny, strange, chilling, scary, happy, surreal, triumphant, moving or any of these things and more. It’s your story to tell. It should probably not be much more than about 1000 words, but time it before you send it, as Acting Out are going to be strict on the time limits: NO MORE THAN 10 MINUTES! It is not necessary for you to have had ANY experience of writing drama in the past to enter. Closing date for submissions is August 2, 2013. Acting Out will choose six pieces and start work on them in August, and writers will be invited to participate in workshops where the pieces get developed. The six pieces will then be part of the performance on Coming Out Day, October 11. Interested? Send your scripts as a word document to actingouttheatregroup@gmail.com
– MKB EILE Magazine 15