my name is amy wheelan. i just want to thank the board of supervisors for inviting us here today. i'm a senior staff attorney at the national center for lesbian rights and these issues are really, really important to us and we have been working on them recently. i want to keep my comments very brief, but i do want to address two issues today. first, just to paint a brief picture of what it's like for lgbt people living in russia today. and second, i'll just add to what has already been said about the efforts that we know that already exist to do this elsewhere at the state level. there's no question that life for lgbt people in russia is terrifying. incidents of violence have grown steadily since russia passed the two recent laws supervisor wiener mentioned first, the gay propaganda law he spoke of in particular, which is why they are criminalizing gay people. and second, a law that bans gay people from adopting children. in many ways, russia -- the common theme of these laws is that children need to be protected from gay people. in many ways russia is therefore experiencing the s