"The democratization process in Latvia has allowed lesbians and gays to establish organizations and. The Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church, the largest in the Baltic state, excommunicated Sants in 2002 after he admitted his homosexuality. In the Baltic state of Latvia, a Soviet republic until 1991 and now a member of the EU, a court on Thursday rejected a claim by openly gay Lutheran Reverend Maris Sants that he was not given a job as religious history teacher because of his sexual orientation. The Moscow gay parade had been banned by the city's mayor, saying homosexuals had no inherent right to promote their "immoral" sexual "deviations". The ensuing scuffles also injured a prominent German politician. Rally in Moscow last month were met by violent counter-protesters. In Russia, a small group of gay activists who defied a ban on a German politician Volker Beck who was injured during the Moscow gay rights parade Last week, ahead of a gay rights march in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, the powerful Orthodox Church and conservative groups slammed homosexuality as immoral and abnormal. Many of formerly communist eastern Europe's anti-gay groups find support for their position in the church, which has regained a strong foothold in society since the demise of communism in the early 1990s. When gay rights supporters in Poznan defied a ban by the city's conservative authorities to stage a "march for tolerance", they were pelted with eggs by far-right activists and denounced by the Catholic church as going "against natural law". Wierzejski has denied making the comments. If they're given a few blows with a stick, they won't come back. LPR deputy Wojciech Wierzejski was recently quoted by the Warsaw-based Zycie Warszawy daily as saying of Saturday's rally: "If perverts take to demonstrating, they should be hit with sticks. On Friday, the head of a teacher training school in Poland was sacked for publishing a brochure that the Education Ministry - led by LPR leader Roman Giertych - denounced as "encouraging contact with homosexual organizations." Similar remarks from politicians abound in Poland and elsewhere in the old Eastern bloc. Mean that mankind would slowly die out," he said. But there is no reason to encourage it because it would "I do not plan to persecute homosexuals or to hinder theirĬareers. Kaczynski - who as Warsaw mayor banned the 20 gay pride rallies - shot back at a group of gay rights activists who were heckling him. Protests during Kaczynski's speech in Berlinĭuring a state visit to Germany in March, Polish President Lech In 1928, before it rose to power in Germany, the National Socialist party, or Nazis, castigated homosexuals as a threat to German survival. "It reminds me of Germany in the 1920s", said Tomasz Baczkowski, president of the Equality Foundation which is organizing Saturday's "Equality Parade". Polish gays live has grown worse since the LPR joined Poland's
The family, and the state is obliged to protect the family."īiedron insists what he calls the "atmosphere of hate" in which He contends "homosexuality is not natural. Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, prime of the heavily Catholic country of Poland, has likened homosexuality to a disease whose spread must be stopped. Robert Biedron, an official from the Campaign Against Homophobia in Poland. The situation is becoming dangerous," said Gay rights organization say homosexuals in Poland live in aĬlimate of hatred and fear that has grown worse since the far-right League of Polish Families (LPR) entered Poland's governing coalition last month. Claudia Roth, head of Germany's Green party, in PolandĪround 2,000 officers were deployed to survey the parade and march alongside demonstrators in an attempt to prevent attacks by far right groups, the police spokesman added.Ī group of around 100 skinheads threw eggs at the marchers but were prevented from approaching them by police.