Russian Pensioners Party leader Igor Zotov wants to amend his country’s constitution to make it absolutely clear that Russia considers only marriages between men and women to be valid.

Russia does not currently allow same-sex couples to wed and restricts LGBTI people’s rights to express their identity publicly but Zotov is concerned that the definition of what constitutes a family in the Russian Constitution is too vague.

Article 38 of the Russian Constitution mentions ‘family’ but does not go into detail as what defines a family.

Zotov wants to insert language that states ‘Motherhood and childhood, family and marriage as a voluntary union between a man and a woman are under the protection of the state.’

Zotov says he has received support from colleagues in the Russian Duma but has not yet secured the required 90 signatures to have the bill considered by the parliament.

‘I got this idea from the members of the Pensioners’ Party branches in Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk,’ Zotov told Izvestia.

‘These people were extremely concerned over the processes that are currently taking place all over the world … Granting the same status to gay and traditional couples leads to the destruction of the family institution because the community tends to perceive as natural those models approved at the state level.’

A poll conducted by the Levada Public Opinion Center in May of 2013 found that 85% percent of adult Russians were strongly against a law that would allow same-sex marriage.