Homosexuality in Latvia

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Geographical location of Latvia

The democratization process in Latvia after the fall of the Soviet Union enabled the formation of a gay and lesbian movement and scene with NGOs , bars, night clubs, shops and bookstores. Cultural and educational events can be held, and different lifestyles can develop. The country is considered less open to LGBT people, both legally and in public opinion, than most of the European Union .

Legal situation

legality

There are no laws against same-sex sex. Homosexual acts were completely decriminalized in 1992, while under Section 121 of the Soviet Union's criminal law, anal sex between men was punishable. The protection age is independent of gender and sexual orientation for less than 18 years of age is 14 years and over 18-year-old 16 years.

Homosexuals are not officially excluded from the military.

Anti-discrimination laws

In September 2006, a bill against discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation was signed. The Latvian parliament had previously rejected this several times, although the country that joined the EU in 2004 only had until 2006 to implement the EU directive. However, as fines threatened and the President Vaira Vike-Freiberga vetoed an anti-discrimination law without reference to sexual orientation, the draft was passed with 46 votes against 35. Latvia was the last EU country to introduce such a law.

Recognition of same-sex ways of life

In December 2005, a few months after the great media attention surrounding the first Pride parade in Latvia (see Social Movements ), the Latvian parliament changed paragraph 110 of the constitution to explicitly define marriage as a connection between man and woman.

A draft law on the approval of a registered partnership is currently being discussed in Latvia (as of 2015). Among the most prominent proponents of Foreign Minister is one Edgars Rinkēvičs , which 2014 Twitter homosexual outed , arguing at the same time for the introduction of registered partnership. Shortly after Rinkēvičs tweet, however, Justice Minister Dzintars Rasnačs spoke out strongly against the introduction of registered partnerships with reference to the constitution.

Social situation

According to an assessment by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association Europe, Latvia is the second most homophobic EU country after Poland. A Eurobarometer survey from December 2006 showed that 12 percent of Latvians are in favor of opening up marriage to same-sex couples. 8 percent agreed that same-sex couples should have the right to adoption. (For comparison: the EU average was 44% and 33%, respectively).

In the 2015 Eurobarometer survey, 42% of Latvian respondents agreed that gays, lesbians and bisexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals. In contrast, only 19% of those questioned were in favor of opening up marriage to same-sex couples, the second lowest figure after Bulgaria (17%) with an EU-wide average of 61%.

Only the capital Riga has a small gay scene.

Social movements

The first LGBT organization in Latvia was Latvijas Asociācija seksuālai vienlīdzībai (LASV), which existed from 1990 to 1997 and which from 1994 mainly fought for greater legal equality. Your successor organization was the organization Homoseksualitātes informācijas centrs (HIC).

Vērdiņš and Ozoliņš rate this first organization as ineffective in the struggle for more rights and visibility. It was not until 2002, and even more so from 2005, when the first Pride parade was held , that LGBT rights became a more frequent issue in Latvian politics. The first Pride parade took place in Riga on June 23, 2005, organized by the newly established organization ILGA Latvia. The approximately 150 participants in the demonstration obtained legal approval for the parade after the city council initially refused to grant permission because of “public morals”, and faced a larger, sometimes violent, counter-demonstration, so that the participants in the parade ultimately had to be brought to safety by police cars.

The organizers of the 2005 parade joined forces in March 2006 to form Mozaika , which quickly became the largest and most important organization to date to strengthen LGBT rights in Latvia. Kruma and Indans consider the organization to play an essential role in increasing the visibility of the LGBT situation within Latvia.

In 2006, the city council banned the parade due to safety concerns and the organizers' appeal was unsuccessful. Instead, a service of 50 participants in an Anglican church was disrupted by a right-wing radical group. The participants were pelted with feces and fistfights broke out. Five right-wing extremists were arrested. The organizer Mozaika has sued against the ban and won a court of appeal.

Europride 2015 in Riga

In 2007 a major parade took place for the first time with a large contingent of police protection; in 2007 and 2008, the parade was not, as in previous years, prohibited in advance by the city council. In view of the upcoming local elections, the city council again banned the parade from taking place in 2009, but the decision was annulled by the district court.

Since 2009 there has been an annual parade in one of the three Baltic states under the name Baltic Pride . As a Latvian organizer, Mozaika cooperates with the Lithuanian organization Lietuvos gėjų lyga and the Estonian Eesti LGBT Ühing . In 2015 the Europe-wide Pride Parade Europride took place in Riga with 5000 participants.

Culture

Vērdiņš and Ozoliņš describe the representation of homosexuality in Latvian literature . As the first gay character in Latvian literature they name the painter Jānis in Rūdolf's Blaumanis short story Baltais (1896). While LGBT appeared several times in short stories during the 20th century, the first novels with homosexual main characters did not emerge until the beginning of the 21st century, including Zigmund's Skujiņš ' Siržu zagļa uznāciens (2001), Ainārs Zelčs ' 1945 Riga (2001) and Ilze Jansone's Viņpus stikla (2006) and Insomnia (2010).

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Annual Review of the Human Rights Situation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex People in Europe 2015. ILGA-Europe, pp. 99f , accessed on March 27, 2016 .
  2. ^ David A. Gerstner: Routledge International Encyclopedia of Queer Culture . Routledge, 2012, p. 660 .
  3. ↑ Latvia votes for AGG , Queer.de, September 22, 2006
  4. ↑ a b c Kristine Kruma and Ivars Indans: Negotiating otherness: 'Mozaika' and sexual citizenship . In: Enacting European Citizenship . Cambridge University Press, 2013.
  5. ↑ Kasjauns: "Mozaīka" prognozē partnerattiecību likuma pieņemšanu tuvākajā piecgadē (Latvian)
  6. ↑ Jens Mattern: "We have to protect our national culture from anti-culture and anti-civilization". Retrieved July 12, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Discrimination in the EU 2015. Report. (No longer available online.) European Commission, p. 50 , archived from the original on January 22, 2016 ; accessed on March 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.equineteurope.org
  8. ↑ a b c Christine Decker: 'National identity' vs. 'identity movement' - the LGBT movement in Latvia . In: LyÄiŁ³ Studijos ir Tyrimai . tape 5 , no. 5 , 2008, p. 158–167 ( see below [PDF; accessed on March 27, 2016]).
  9. ^ History. (No longer available online.) In: Mozaika. Archived from the original on March 27, 2016 ; accessed on March 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / mozaika.lv
  10. ↑ a b Vērdiņš, Jānis Ozoliņš: Queer Narratives in Contemporary Latvian Short Fiction . In: Anna Pilinska and Harmony Siganporia (Eds.): All Equally Real: Femininities and Masculinities Today . Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford 2015, pp. 79–87 ( inter-disciplinary.net [PDF; accessed on March 28, 2016]). Queer Narratives in Contemporary Latvian Short Fiction ( Memento of the original from March 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.inter-disciplinary.net
  11. ↑ Michael Pelz: Europeanization, Party Systems, and LGBT Rights: The Cases of Estonia, Latvia, Montenegro, and Serbia . 2014 ( ipsa.org [PDF; accessed on March 27, 2016]).
  12. ↑ a b c Latvia: The Status of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights. ILGA-Europe & Mozaika, 2011, accessed March 27, 2016 .
  13. ^ After the CSD ban: Kampfszenen in Riga , Queer.de, July 22, 2006
  14. ↑ CSD Riga: Ban lifted , Queer.de, April 16, 2007
  15. ↑ Māra Rozenberga: Eiropraidā piedalījušies 5000 cilvēku; policija aiztur trīs personas. In: LSM.lv. June 20, 2015, accessed March 27, 2016 .