TBILISI -- Top officials from the ruling Georgian Dream party joined senior Orthodox clerics and conservative religious groups in rallies across the country on May 17 to mark a new holiday known as Family Purity Day, including a march in central Tbilisi, the scene of weeks of protests against a divisive "foreign agent" bill that was passed by parliament earlier this week.
Family Purity Day was established by Georgia's conservative Orthodox Church in 2014 in response to the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT), which is marked every year on May 17 to raise awareness of LGBT rights violations around the world.
To avoid confrontation, no rallies against the "foreign agent" law were scheduled during the march for Family Purity Day.
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In Georgia, Church-Led 'Family Purity Day' Forces Out LGBT Events
The event, which is being marked for the first time with an official holiday, is backed by the ruling Georgian Dream party, which pushed a bill curtailing LGBT rights in March, just weeks before it reintroduced in parliament the "foreign agent" bill seen as modeled on a similar draconian Russian law.
The anti-LGBT Georgian Dream bill bans transgender surgery, child adoption by same-sex couples, indicating sex that is other than male and female in official documents, and organizing public events propagating same-sex relations.
Both pieces of legislation are seen as attempts by Georgian Dream, founded by Russia-friendly billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, to tout its conservative policies ahead of elections scheduled for October.
SEE ALSO: Clashes Erupt Inside, Outside Georgia's Parliament Over 'Foreign Agent' Law's ApprovalIn Tbilisi, the celebrations began at the Kashveti Cathedral with a Mass officiated by Shio Mujiri, the patriarchal locum tenens.
A procession attended by thousands began at the Holy Trinity Cathedral attended by Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze, who is also Georgian Dream's secretary-general, and parliament speaker Shalva Papuashvili, who posted a congratulatory message on social media on May 17.
The official attention given to the event appears to be an attempt to tamp down the impact of weeks of massive protests against the contentious "foreign agent" bill approved by parliament earlier this week as police violently cracked down on demonstrators.
Ana Subeliani, co-director of Tbilisi Pride, told RFE/RL in an interview that the LGBT topic is being used as a tool of manipulation to create anti-Western emotions in the population.
The government’s policies are meant to “create the narrative that the West -- our partners, our friends, from the Western countries -- that they are grabbing our values and that LGBT people are the main enemies,” she said.
She also said the LGBT community no longer holds events on May 17 because it doesn’t want “to give them any additional reason to…attack the queer community members.
“Unfortunately, this day become a day of violence and hatred…in our country,” she added.
It has been a “super traumatic experience” for the LGBT community that Family Purity Day events have replaced IDAHOBIT events, she said. It's already become normalized that on May 17 the LGBT community "should not do anything.… If we do, it’s connected to big risk.”
Pro-Western President Salome Zurabishvili, who has been at odds with Georgian Dream, has called the "foreign agent" legislation "unacceptable" and "not consistent" with the country's path toward integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions.
Zurabishvili has vowed to veto the law, a move for which she has 10 days following the May 14 vote of approval in parliament. But Georgian Dream's parliamentary majority will allow it to easily override the presidential veto.
The law has been condemned by the United States, the European Union, and rights watchdogs, who have pointed to its similarity with legislation used by President Vladimir Putin to crush dissent in Russia and stifle independent institutions, prompting Georgians to refer to the measure as "the Russian law."
Zurabishvili has warned that Georgia's survival as a state is in danger because of the legislation, which requires media outlets, NGOs, and other nonprofits to register as "pursuing the interests of a foreign power" if more than 20 percent of their funding comes from abroad.
"It's unacceptable because it reflects a turn of the Georgian attitudes towards the civil society, towards the media and towards the recommendations of the European Commission that are not consistent with what is our declared policy of going towards a European integration,” Zurabishvili told the Associated Press in an interview on May 16.
On May 15, protesters marched along with the foreign ministers of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Iceland in a gesture of solidarity with Georgians' Western aspirations.
An RFE/RL source in Brussels said European Council President Charles Michel held talks with Zurabishvilil and Kobakhidze, where he stressed that the Georgian people must determine their own future. Michel told Kobakhidze to search for a way out of the political turbulence, the source said.
Kobakhidze has accused the protesters of "following the agenda of the political minority" and charged that they were showing a "great irresponsibility" toward their country.
The Georgian Dream-controlled security forces have repeatedly cracked down violently on protesters in recent weeks using water cannons, tear gas, and rubber bullets.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis voiced concern about the violence employed to crack down on protesters.
"It's truly worrying what we see happening in the street when it comes to intimidations and brutality," he said in an interview with RFE/RL in Tbilisi. "This has to stop."
The Western foreign ministers' presence at the anti-foreign agent law protests, while not prevented by the government, has sparked irritation among Georgian Dream leaders.
"This is a very big insult," Kaladze, the Tbilisi mayor and Georgian Dream party chief, told the media after attending the religious march in Tbilisi on May 17.
"All developed countries would have taken these foreign ministers by the hand and kicked them out of the country," Kaladze said.