Subscribe to Breaking News
Loading ...Lithuanian cabinet member: May take a generation to end homophobia
10.08.2008 3:09pm EDT
(Vilnius) Responding to questions in Parliament about Lithuania’s reputation within the European Union that it is the EU’s most homophobic country, Foreign Minister Petras Vaitiekunas admitted the criticism is justified.
“This is true: Lithuania is one of the most homophobic countries in the EU. This has to be viewed as a fact,” Vaitiekunas said. “The situation cannot be changed by any one party or minister.”He then told Parliament that it likely would take a “change of generations” to develop a more tolerant attitude toward homosexuality.
The EU recently has been putting pressure on Lithuania to improve its human rights record.
Last year, about 200 people attending an international LGBT rights conference in Vilnius were overcome with a noxious gas when several smoke bombs were thrown into the club where the meeting was taking place.
Police refused to allow those inside the building to leave, saying they had not contained the perimeter, even though the fumes had filled the building.
No one was seriously hurt in the attack and in the past 12 months there have been no arrests.
The bombing came hours after the mayor of the Lithuanian capital refused to allow the group to hold a march and raise the rainbow flag, citing safety concerns over construction work going on along the planned parade route.
The Brussels-based International Lesbian and Gay Association, Europe, which planned the three day annual conference, accused Mayor Juozas Imbrasas of homophobia, after she refused to consider any alternate routes.
Earlier last year, Imbrasas cancelled a stop by a tolerance campaign sponsored by the European Union claiming it could spark violence.
The tolerance campaign – a bus carrying the slogan “For diversity, Against discrimination” – had been touring Europe. It’s goal was to education people about the EU’s human rights laws.
Imbrasas again refused to allow the bus to stop in Vilnius this year.
Also last year, Imbrasas supported transit workers who refused to drive trolleys with ads promoting LGBT diversity.
@Bud: Who told you that turkish police raids and shuts down gay publications? Don’t believe in everthing you read unless they have a proof. Last year or 2 years ago, the police raided a LGBT NGO because they were warned that illegal prostitution was being carried out. So far, none of the gay news publications in Turkey have been shut down but they sued one editor because they claimed he put immoral content inside the magazine not because the content was gay but they thought it is pornography. Yes, there is discrimination. They shouldn’t have raided and they shouldn’t have sued but there is a difference!!!
OK…their ignorant Lithuanian asses then need to be kicked out of the EU, as well as other backwards European countries. Just like Turkey, which raids and shuts down Gay news publications. Along with Turkey, it is also the former Eastern Bloc nations which can‘t seem to grasp the concept of human rights. Lithuania’s own twisted sense of “cultural identity” has made her resistant to the mandates of the European Court of Justice in regards to the treatment of GLBT citizens.
“National courts are required to enforce the treaties that their member states have ratified, and thus the laws enacted under them, even if doing so requires them to ignore conflicting national law, and (within limits) even constitutional provisions.”
Membership in the EU should never be granted to any nation that has not altered all of its statute laws in a manner that grants all GLBT citizens the same rights as heterosexuals – without equivocation.
* Requirements for membership are as follows: To join the EU, a country must meet the Copenhagen criteria, defined at the 1993 Copenhagen European Council. These require a stable democracy which respects human rights and the rule of law; a functioning market economy capable of competition within the EU; and the acceptance of the obligations of membership, including EU law.
Unfortunately, if that were strictly enforced, then Spain, Belgium, The Netherlands and, soon, Norway would be the only ones granted full membership because the other European countries (including England, France and Germany) still have a South African-like apartheid system in place regarding the official status and the recognition of relationship rights of their GLBT citizens.
Regardless, the EU is still light-years ahead of the United States of America in terms of overall respect for human rights.
~ Bud Evans
* Supporting EU References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU