Eastern Europe's Gay Rights Battle: Is LGBT Equality Out Of Reach?
Agence France Presse
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Posted: 02/11/2013 6:11 am EST
Ania
and Yga have been inseparable for the last 17 years, living together
as a couple in the Polish capital Warsaw but their love is seen as
second class in this deeply Roman Catholic country.
As
Britain and France legalise gay marriage, in January Polish lawmakers
voted down three bills on civil unions for unmarried couples whether
gay or straight.
With
the Polish constitution defining marriage as a relationship between a
man and woman, the drafts did not include the right for gays to marry
or adopt. In July, parliament rejected four similar draft laws.
The
conservative Polish scenario is repeated elsewhere in the region
where homophobia is still an issue, except for the overwhelmingly
secular Czech Republic, which allows gay couples legal rights within
civil unions.
"It's
humiliating when I fill out official documents as Yga's partner and
bureaucrats cross out the word 'partner' and replace it
with...'other'," Ania Zawadzka told AFP.
Although
the situation won't change overnight in Poland, one of Europe's most
religious and conservative countries, a recent survey suggests
acceptance of civil unions for lesbians and gays is slowly on the
rise.
While
69 percent of Poles opposed gay marriage and adoption in a February
survey, a majority 55 said they backed civil unions for both gay and
straight couples.
Having
entered parliament for the first time in 2011, the Palikot Movement
is part of a new wave on the left-wing of Poland's political scene,
until now dominated by ex-communists.
Supported
mostly by young Poles, the movement is bent on shaking things up in
the EU country of 38.2 million, the homeland of the late Pope John
Paul, where around 90 percent of citizens declare themselves
Catholic.
It
has led the campaign for gay rights and for legalising marijuana and
has shepherded both Biedron and Anna Grodzka, a transsexual, into
parliament -- all of which was unthinkable just a decade ago.
Things
are different south of the border in the largely atheist Czech
Republic. A survey there in May 2012 found three-quarters of
respondents backed the country's 2006 registered partnership law for
lesbians and gays.
Fifty-one
percent backed gay marriage, but 55 percent opposed the right to
adopt for homosexuals, according to the CVVM pollsters.
In
neighbouring Slovakia, which like Poland is strongly Catholic,
parliament rejected a bill last year aimed at legal recognition for
gay couples.
Leftist
Prime Minister Robert Fico insists he is not opposed civil unions for
gays, but "the issue is not on our party's agenda at the
moment."
In
Romania, homosexuality was illegal up until a decade ago. A 2011
survey showed 73 percent of respondents did not want gay people in
their family; 45 percent did not even want to work with gays or
lesbians. The capital Bucharest has hosted annual Gay Pride parades
over the last nine years.
In
former the Soviet Union, authorities long painted homosexuality as a
lifestyle imported from the decadent West.
Members
of the EU since 2004, the formerly Soviet Baltic states of Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania do not recognise gay partnerships.
"The
LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual) situation has improved in
the last two decades, but less than we expected, and it remains among
the worst in Europe", Vladimiras Simonko, a leading Lithuanian
gay rights activist, told AFP.
In
Latvia, a 2005 constitutional court ruling defined marriage as a
union between a woman and man.
Meanwhile
in Russia, where homosexuality was criminalised until 1993 and
considered a mental illness until 1999, gay rights remain an issue
veiled in social taboos.
Copyright
(2013) AFP. All rights reserved.
