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Struggling for Gay Rights In a More Diverse Europe
Conservative attitudes in newer EU member states threaten to roll back a generation of gains in gay marriage, adoption, even equal access to work.
amyvanvechten@gmail.comThe European Union’s recent growth spurt to 27 member states has meant an increase in tensions, clearly visible this year from Amsterdam to Nicosia to Warsaw over the issue of gay rights. Across the EU, the disparities in national policy and attitude toward homosexuality have never been more pronounced.
Some member states – notably the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Spain – favor far-reaching rights for gay people, including same-sex marriage. Others, including former Eastern bloc nations Poland and Romania, openly and unapologetically discriminate against gays, barring them from jobs and denying them other rights afforded to heterosexuals.
“It’s not in the interest of any society to increase the number of homosexuals—that’s obvious,” Poland’s conservative Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski told reporters last spring, in comments reported by the Associated Press, even as Kaczynski argued that homosexuals don’t face discrimination in Poland.
Officials and advocates from very different backgrounds are cooperating to try to unite the states in a shared stance of tolerance. For the third year in a row, the EU observed Anti-Homophobia Day, on May 17, and has declared 2007 the year of Equal Opportunity for All.
Gay rights advocates, like Kathalijne Buitenweg, a Dutch member of the European Parliament for the Green Left, are working overtime on the issue.
Buitenweg, 37, reflects the progressive stance of the Netherlands, which became the first country in the world to perform same-sex marriages nationally in 2001. Though she is not gay, Buitenweg is a key member of Parliament’s Intergroup on Gay and Lesbian Rights, and a proponent of anti-homophobia legislation in the European Parliament.
Among the EU’s newer member states, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland all maintain constitutional bans against same-sex marriage.
Buitenweg helped push for an anti-homophobia resolution the European Parliament adopted last April, and made a point of appearing at the Warsaw gay pride march last June. Polish authorities had banned similar events in 2004 and 2005.
“Words are not innocent,” Buitenweg said in an interview in Brussels. “Even when discriminatory bans aren’t carried out, proposing them has a negative effect.”
The Europe chapter of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) is focused broadly on ensuring the rights of gay people to demonstrate and express themselves peacefully around Europe.
ILGA-Europe launched a letter-writing campaign that targeted officials in European cities where gay people had either been denied permission to organize demonstrations and pride festivals, or faced severe resistance and violence. Organizers, including Kim Smouter, 24, the secretary of the Intergroup on Gay and Lesbian Rights, sent letters signed by members of Parliament to 44 mayors across the continent, demanding tolerance and asking for their support.
“It’s important for the European institutions to put pressure on the member states,” Smouter said. “We’re losing ground and going backwards at a very frightening rate, even in countries like The Netherlands, because there is such a polarization in Europe. The eastern countries are 20 to 25 years behind when it comes to gay rights.”
Buitenweg agrees. “The Netherlands does have new pressure on it,” she said in a phone interview. “I wouldn’t call it an alarming situation. We just have to stay very strong and continue to fight against homophobia. It takes time.”
To their delight, the initiative received a positive response, including the strong endorsements of Nicosia, Cyprus Mayor Eleni Mavrou, and Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen.
Smouter makes sure an Intergroup member attends and supports every pride event in Europe.
Yet the public isn’t very aware of these issues. According to data gathered by ILGA-Europe in 2006, only 30 percent of the public knows about legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and one in two Europeans considers discrimination based on sexual orientation to be widespread. Only 32 percent of Europeans think gay couples should be allowed to adopt children. Public opinion on gay marriage tends to be somewhat more tolerant, with 44 percent of EU citizens agreeing that it should be allowed.
In the Netherlands, 82 percent of respondents favor homosexual marriage, and 69 percent support the idea of adoption by homosexual couples. By contrast, respondents in Greece, Latvia and Poland oppose both almost as strongly – with 84 percent against it in Greece, 89 percent in Latvia and 76 percent in Poland, according to the survey.
But Christine Loudes, the policy director of ILGA-Europe, thinks the disparity in attitudes may be a political misunderstanding. At a lunch interview, her food went untouched as she explained. “Pride marches represent a Western tradition,” Loudes said. “The eastern countries are threatened by pride events because they view them as Western propaganda.”
Other gay rights activists, though, see it as a struggle to defend basic human rights. Ottavio Marzocchi, an Italian advocate in Parliament for gay rights, wrote much of the text for the resolution adopted in April, the third against homophobia since 2004, more than in any other legislative term. As a gay man, Marzocchi is optimistic about the increase in legislative activity within the institution.
“There seems to be a progressive majority for this issue,” Marzocchi said, as stirring an espresso in a cafe. “Even MEPs from more conservative member states try to cooperate. It’s really going somewhere.”
Buitenweg, Marzocchi’s colleague and fellow advocate, had a slightly different take.
“There were votes against the resolution,” she said. “Even within the institution there is disagreement and resistance. We just have to keep doing what we can.”