The Rivne City Council in western Ukraine has banned the holding of equality marches. The local lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community had plans to hold an event on January 1 in the regional capital located 327 kilometers west of Kyiv. The ban, initiated by the head of the council’s budget committee, city councilman Oleh Karpyak of the nationalist Svoboda party, cited the Family Code as justification. According to a city council decision issued on December 24, the legislation is intended “to prohibit the propaganda of various types of deviant sexual behavior in the city of Rivne, including in the form of so-called ‘equality marches,’ ‘pride parades,’ ‘queer culture festivals,’ and so forth, held in places of mass leisure for families with children.”