Gay rights: New battle for Europe vs. Russia

[Melech 9,900]

"RIGA, Latvia — The first time this tiny Baltic nation held a gay pride march, the minuscule crowd was pelted with rotten eggs and bottles under the copper-green spires of Riga’s medieval old city. The participants — all 40 of them — fled to safety in a church.

That was a decade ago. This year’s parade drew thousands from across Europe, and the egg-throwers stayed at home.

Eastern Europe, long a stronghold of virulent homophobia, is reexamining attitudes toward gays and lesbians, and the debate has become a new battleground in the conflict between Russia and the West. The Kremlin has seized the opening, warning its former satellite states that if they align with decadent Europe, moral collapse will soon follow.

Russia’s arguments have taken hold in Ukraine, Georgia, and other countries outside the European Union’s high walls, where pro-Western leaders have resisted European demands for tolerance of gays and lesbians.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/gay-rights-in-eastern-europe-a-new-battleground-for-russia-and-the-west/2015/07/24/8ad04d4e-2ff2-11e5-a879-213078d03dd3_story.html

[hmm 979]

Glad they're moving in the right direction (maybe Eurovision is a factor in that  ) but they've clearly still got a long way to go. Still, Rome wasn't built in a day  

[ItsTommyBitch 12,640]

Glad they're moving in the right direction (maybe Eurovision is a factor in that  ) but they've clearly still got a long way to go. Still, Rome wasn't built in a day  

Your avi  

Slay though  It's nice to see that the world is watching and slowly bettering (more like educating  ) itself  

[EdX 2,901]

I'm from Latvia and live here and can approve that it DOES get better here. But this topic is still very controversial here. It will take about 10-20 years until there's a generation change here (from the people who have had some impact in their lives from the Soviet Union to the younger generation - us)) and that's needed because there are still TONS of people who are against LGBT rights but almost all of them are the older generation and they have had a connection with the Soviet Union in their lives where homos-xuality was illegal. Us, the younger generation, are much more accepting and pro-human rights kind of people. So for the main public opinion to change here it'll take a few more years. I'd say that about 30% of all people have an anti-LGBT opinion, 50% are neutral and 20% are pro-LGBT.

[TiphEret 1,320]

I'm from Latvia and live here and can approve that it DOES get better here. But this topic is still very controversial here. It will take about 10-20 years until there's a generation change here (from the people who have had some impact in their lives from the Soviet Union to the younger generation - us)) and that's needed because there are still TONS of people who are against LGBT rights but almost all of them are the older generation and they have had a connection with the Soviet Union in their lives where homos-xuality was illegal. Us, the younger generation, are much more accepting and pro-human rights kind of people. So for the main public opinion to change here it'll take a few more years. I'd say that about 30% of all people have an anti-LGBT opinion, 50% are neutral and 20% are pro-LGBT.

Wow, it's good it's changing but it's tough knowing the impact the soviet union had on so many people, it saddens me that is many european countries there is still homophobia! I know a girl from Latvia she study in Denmark and she likes it more because no one cares, seriously they find it more strange that you are foreign than you being gay! 

[hmm 979]

Your avi  

it's my implicit encouragement to recycle  Or else I'm denigrating myself to the status of a rubbish bin idk