All About Latvia

In place of introduction:
Sixty years ago, one of the leaders of German opposition Martin Himmeler uttered his famous words, “When Nazis took communists, I was quiet because I wasn’t a communist. When Nazis were arresting social democrats, I was quiet because I wasn’t a social democrat. When they put to jail leaders of unions, I was quiet because I wasn’t a member of a union. When they came after me, no one was left to protest.”

Our ruling and opposition political leaders came out one by one. Not out of the closet, but came out to condemn the weekend parade. Janis Adamsons, Girts Valds Kristovskis, just to name a few. When one of the leaders of the party who claims to fight for rights of national minorities in Latvia was asked about rights of sexual minorities, he responded. “Problems with national, not sexual minorities are more of character to Latvia.”

The government’s approach to dealing with sexual minorities is similar to the Soviet approach to sex. We don’t have any.

On July 20, Latvia’s Prime Minister Mr. Aigars Kalvitis said, “The parade is unacceptable. We are the country of Christian values. We cannot advertise things unacceptable by majority of society.”

Perhaps, Latvia could learn from Iran.

Yep, we suddenly remembered we were a Christian nation. We weren’t a Christian nation when during a discussion on EU Constitution revolved around whether to include a God reference as presented by Poland. We weren’t a Christian nation when the question on abortion took place. But when it came to sexual orientation, we recalled our Christian values.

And we also recalled that the opinion of majority matters, unlike, say, Latvia’s participation in the war in Iraq.

So, under the pressure from political leaders and in the hope to keep city coalition government, the city mananger revoked his decision to grant the premission for the gay parade downtown Riga last weekend. The organization filed a lawsuit. And the parade went on as planned.

According to a news report, tens of people participated in the parade while a crowd of about a thousand was watching with a somewhat hostile attitude. Six of those watching were arrested.

Diena quotes several gawkers.

25-year-old Genady: “They deserve to be covered with eggs and tomatoes.”

Older woman Anna with a girl in her arms, “I came with my granddaughter to show her that there are these kinds of people in the world. I cannot isolate her from the outside.”

Indulis: “I represent myself. I think there is no difference between Christians and gays. I am neither, but I’m for freedom of speech.”

Juris Lavrikovs, one of the participants of the march said, “I’m in shock. We live in a wild and uncivilized country.”

From BBC:

The few dozen marchers were outnumbered by hundreds of protesters who blocked the narrow streets of the capital.

Police were forced to alter the march route and to form a chain around the parade participants to protect them.

The march had sparked outrage in Latvia and only went ahead after a court overturned a council ban on the event.

Officials said that six of the protesters had been detained for their part in disrupting the march.

Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis had opposed the event, saying Riga should “not promote things like that”.

“For sexual minorities to parade in the very heart of Riga, next to the Doma church, is unacceptable,” he told LNT television on Wednesday.

One of those who took part in Saturday’s march, 61-year-old Lars-Peter Sjouberg, from Sweden, said he had been shocked by the offensive remarks made by protesters.

“Protesters here were really aggressive [...] but it won’t stop me from helping my Latvian friends fight for their rights.”

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Organized by the Gay and Lesbian Support Youth Group, on July 23, Latvian capital city of Riga will be the site of the first gay, lesbian and transsexual pride parade in the country: Rigas Praids 2005 (Riga’s Pride 2005).

The parade itself will take one hour from 4 to 5 p.m. Saturday. It is estimated that nearly 250 people will participate in the march.

One Russian-language Latvian Web site went all out with — in my opinion — unnecessarily explicit pictures (so you’ve been warned!) to post this news. It’s as if they were looking for an excuse. Except for Latvian representatives, gays and lesbians from Sweden, Finland, Lithuania, Estonia and Russia will participate in the parade through the streets of the Old City this coming Saturday. There were some rumors that a few Swedish gay MPs might participate.

Such events have become traditional in democratic countries. They are a peculiar detector showing whether the society in a particular country corresponds to generally accepted principles of democracy, freedom, tolerance, human rights, politics and culture,” the group said in a statement.

A day after the city granted the permission for the march, religious organizations, Latvijas Pirma Partija (Latvia’s First Party, or LPP) and national radicals condemned the event. On the same day, Latvijas Prima Partija, known as the party of priests, is organizing a worship service devoted to the preservation of the family values in the society.

Ultranationalist Web site Latvians.lv along with Klubs411 and National Power Union condemned the parade. On one Web site, the pride parade is called a hatred toward God and Country. Ironically, the Latvian nationalists found support among Russian-speaking nationalists, such as some of the participants of the Shtab Web site, the organization set to defend Russian-language schools in Latvia.

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