Russia’s children’s rights ombudsman ruled out any possibility of adoption of Russian orphans by French gay couples if France introduces gay marriage.

During an interview with the Rossiskaya Gazeta daily, the ombudsman, Pavel Astakhov said: ‘The official position on gay marriages is stated in Russian official documents, the Family Code and the constitution.

They put it straight that the marriage is a union of a man and a woman. We do not have anything else. Period’.

Astakhov, who is also a celebrity lawyer and television personality, defended his position saying that the UN Convention on children’s rights also reads that any child has the right to a mother and father and this should not be ‘redefined’.

The ombudsman said that as far as he ‘understands’, the French themselves are opposing the government attempts to legalize gay marriage.

He quoted his French friends who reportedly were upset by the fact that the French Education Ministry was introducing descriptions of homosexual families in textbooks.

According to him, his friends said that their country needed the same laws that were recently approved in Russia, such as the anti-gay propaganda ban to minors.

France currently ranks fourth by the number of orphans adopted from Russia (after the USA, Italy and Spain).

The Russian-French adoptions agreement signed in November 2011 is based on the 1989 UN’s Children’s Rights Convention and the Hague Convention on International Adoptions of 1993.

Gay Star News previously broke the story that the National Assembly has approved a key article of the bill that would legalise gay marriage.

The measure, approved by a 249-to-97 vote, dropped the legal requirement that a marriage in France must be between two people of the opposite sex.

Russia recently approved a ban on US adoptions citing the unwillingness of the US side to cooperate in investigation of cases of child abuse as well as soft sentences passed by US courts to people convicted of cruel treatment of adopted Russian orphans.

The ban caused great controversy in Russia and was sharply criticized the international community.

Another Russian legislative initiative of the recent weeks is the draft bill banning ‘homosexual propaganda’.

The bill has to pass two more readings in the Russia Duma, and if adopted it would not only make gay pride parades a prosecutable offence, but even something as simple as waving the rainbow flag could be punishable.

The bill would make promotion of public events and dissemination of information on LGBT issues to minors illegal.

Human rights groups are also concerned that the law may ban information, education and counselling regarding HIV/AIDS for gay men.

Fines are steep in comparison with average Russian incomes, with those violating the law being forced to pay penalties of between â‚¬100 and â‚¬12,500 (US$ 130 and US$ 16,966), the latter representing the average annual salary in the country.

The draft bill is intentionally condemned; both the EU and the UN have slammed Russia for the bill and its adoption as law in some regions, labelling it as a human rights violation and restriction on the freedom of speech.