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Loading ...Gay pride activists march in Rome, Warsaw, Zagreb
06.15.2009 8:51am EDT
(Rome) Tens of thousands of gay rights activists demanding rights for same-sex couples marched through the streets of Rome on Saturday in a gay pride parade.
Smaller marches wound through the capitals of heavily Catholic Poland and in Croatia, where counterdemonstrators shouted anti-gay and nationalist slogans.In Rome, costumed demonstrators carrying rainbow flags and signs reading “freedom for all” attacked the conservative government of Premier Silvio Berlusconi.
They demanded rights for same-sex couples and the recognition of gay marriage.
Activists dressed as fake clergy with colorful hats and signs reading “No Vatican” protested what they say is the church’s excessive influence on Italy’s policies.
Organizers said Saturday was not a special day for gay pride but that most such parades are organized around June 28, marking the 1969 landmark Stonewall riots in New York, considered the birth of the gay rights movement.
In Warsaw, hundreds of gay and lesbian activists marched, also calling for legal unions between same-sex couples.
About 1,500 demonstrators marched along Warsaw’s main Marszalkowska Street under escort, police said. Several dozen right-wing youths shouting anti-gay invective confronted the parade near the Parliament building, but there were no confrontations, police said.
Some previous gay demonstrations have been marked by violence.
Homosexuals were a taboo subject in Poland under communism. Since the 1990 democratic changes, gays have been campaigning for equal rights, but marriage in Poland is only legal between a man and a woman.
In Croatia, another mostly Roman Catholic country, about 500 gay activists marched through Zagreb.
No violence was reported, but about 50 people held a counterdemonstration and shouted anti-gay slogans. One was led away by police after trying to break through a cordon that authorities had created around the Gay Pride parade to protect it.
The “Shot heard ’round the world”
Poland (Polska) decriminilized homosexuality in 1935 I read. But the country still lags in recognition of same-sex relationships. So work needs to be done there and is so much of Eastern Europe. The former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia has civil unions(borders Italy and shares in Alpine mountain region with neighboring Italy the only Slavic country to have an Alpine mountain region)as does the Czech Republic.
Poland never criminalized hmosexuality. This law was inherited from Russian occupation. But when we liberated we had to “repeal” this law.
And I can’t agree with “heavily” catholic. Catholic Church is dying in our country, nobody cares at all about what they say and what they claim. But politicians like to invoke “the greatest Pole” John Paul II and Poles loved him very much and that’s the only reason why this country remains to be seemed as a catholic in the world.
In Zagreb, five – reportedly ant-gays – were arrested. Also, one incident did happen: a guy returning from Pride was badly beaten. Don’t know details.
Anti-gay counterdemonstration was organized by a political party (Croatian Pure Party of Rights (extreme right-wing) and a minor profacist organization “Croatian Nationalists”. It was approved by Croatian police despite hate-language and poster they have published.
These people are the real heroes today: on the front lines, with ignorant fascists screaming abuse and threats at them. Small groups, leading the charge. Gay rights are global human rights. Our enemies are who they’ve always been; haters of freedom, obscurantists, bigots, racists and miogynists, hypocrites and the violent.
Poland had those goddamn Kaczynski twins who damn near got it under some serious EU sanction–but those fuckers were both elected (and it seems Lech is still president). Poland is in transition, and like the Baltic States, Poland is still coming out of its past. I still like to think that Polish resilience and love of life will overcome the venom of both nationalists and the Church.
Italy? Berlusconi is doing nothing so much as making Italian legislators the joke they have collectively been since (before?) Mussolini. The good that could come of this foolishness is that Berlusconi would likely amend the Lateran Treaty to give new powers to the Roman Catholic Church. In my fantasy world, that would give truth to the idea that the Church is both a faith AND a state, which would allow even strict-constructionists to bitch-slap the Church into no longer interfering with US domestic politics. I have my kleenex ready.
Croatia? That’s some balls, but don’t rule them out. We have a huge Croatian population here (CLE). Croats aren’t so far from Italians. Catholic but real people too. Very much like the Baptists I grew up with–what you advocate isn’t necesarily what you believe.