Thoands rally Prague to honor 2 sla Slovak gay men | AP News

Contents:

• EASTERN EUROPE WAS ONCE A WORLD LEAR ON GAY RIGHTS. THEN RAN OUT OF SPEGOATS
• AS THE EU TAK A STEP FORWARD FOR GAY RIGHTS, CZECHIA STANDS STILL ON THE ISSUE
• #GAY RIGHTS
• THOANDS RALLY PRAGUE TO HONOR 2 SLA SLOVAK GAY MEN

EASTERN EUROPE WAS ONCE A WORLD LEAR ON GAY RIGHTS. THEN RAN OUT OF SPEGOATS

Gay Marriage⚭✖ Civil unnsCensorship✔ No censorshipChangg Genr✖ Legal, but requir surgeryNon-bary genr regnn✖ Not legally regnizedEmployment Discrimatn✔ Sexual orientatn and genr intyHog Discrimatn✔ Sexual orientatn and genr intyDonatg Blood✖ Banned (1-year ferral)Conversn Therapy✖ Not banned. Current statSce Jan 1, 1962Legal Homosexual activy was crimalized marriage Czech Republic? Current statSce Jul 1, 2006Civil unns Registered partnerships are available for same sex upl, but they have limed rights parison to marriage (no pensn and tax rights and no adoptn rights)Not legalgay marriage is not legal.

IllegalThe Czech Republic do not currently allow gay upl to adopt, as adoptn is rerved for married upl only and gay upl are not legally able to get married the untry. Servg openly ary Czech Republic is Acrdg to rearch by The Palm Center, "homosexualy is not nsired a liabily for enlistment.

Current statSce Jul 1, 1990Equal The age of nsent Czech Republic is 15 years for both heterosexual and homosexual dividuals. Benešov Beroun Blansko Brno-město Brno-venkov Bntál Břeclav Cheb Chomutov Chdim Domažlice Děčín Frýk Místek Havlíčkův Brod Hodonín Hrac Králové Jablonec nad Nisou Jeník Jihlava Jdřichův Hrac Jičín Karlovy Vary Karvá Kladno Klatovy Kolín Kromĕříž Kutná Hora Liberec Loměřice Louny Mladá Bollav Most Mělník Nový Jičín Nymburk Náchod Olomouc Opava Ostrava město Pardubice Pelhřimov Plzeň jih Plzeň město Plzeň sever Prachatice Praha 1 Praha 10 Praha 11 Praha 12 Praha 13 Praha 14 Praha 15 Praha 2 Praha 3 Praha 4 Praha 5 Praha 6 Praha 7 Praha 8 Praha 9 Praha východ Praha západ Prostĕjov Písek Přerov Příbram Rakovník Rokyny Rychnov nad Kněžnou Sey Sokolov Strakonice Svavy Tachov Teplice Ttnov Tábor Třebíč Uherské Hradištĕ Vsetín Vyškov Zlín Znojmo Ústí nad Labem Ústí nad Orlicí Čká Lípa Čké Budějovice Čký Kmlov Šumperk Žd’ár nad Sázavou Jihocký kraj (Regn)Jihomoravský kraj (Regn)Karlovarský kraj (Regn)Královéhracký kraj (Regn)Liberecký kraj (Regn)Moravskoslezský kraj (Regn)Olomoucký kraj (Regn)Pardubický kraj (Regn)Plzenský kraj (Regn)Praha, hlavní mto (Regn)Stredocký kraj (Regn)Vysoca (Regn)Zlínský kraj (Regn)Ústecký kraj (Regn). Participants attend the Prague Pri Para where thoands march through the cy center support of gay rights, Prague, Czech Republic, Augt 10, 2019.

AS THE EU TAK A STEP FORWARD FOR GAY RIGHTS, CZECHIA STANDS STILL ON THE ISSUE

The Czech Republic is often nsired the 2nd most (Slovenia beg the most) progrsive former Eastern Bloc untry regards to lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr (LGBT) rights.

A 2013 Pew Rearch Center poll showed that 80% of Czechs thought that homosexualy should be accepted by society, one of the hight rat among the 39 untri surveyed. The Czech Republic, the Central European untry is the most liberal European untry regardg lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr (LGBT+) rights acrdg to CEE New Perspectiv.

A 2013 Pew Rearch Center survey monstrated that 80% of Czechs thk that homosexualy ought to be acknowledged by society, one of the most top among the 39 natns surveyed. The reason why homosexual people prefer to move to Prague than any other place the untry is that some of them are still a b of sred to e out as a homosexual wh the fear of dreadg rults as revealed by the surveys recently nducted by the Czech Amy of Scienc (fd here Czech). It aims are maly to promote tolerant civil society, fight agast homophobia and crease public awarens of gay, lbian, bisexual and transgenr muny the Czech Republic.

#GAY RIGHTS

It is often hard to meet and to make iendships wh other gay people around and once a Czech gay people fd a partner they tend to hi away om other gays. There is also a gay film ftival lled Mezipatra that plays movi both ci (Prague and Brno). There are very few plac Brno for gay people and one of them is often more equented by straight people.

I tried to be amible to a person there once and he warned me not to touch him as he “is not gay. One of the nsistent featur of the gay rights movement over the past five s has been a belief progrs: Members of the gay muny and their alli have sisted that, over time, attus about homosexualy will only change for the better. In part, this nvictn is based on the power of moral suasn, but also reli on sheer mographics: Younger people tend to be more supportive of gay rights.

THOANDS RALLY PRAGUE TO HONOR 2 SLA SLOVAK GAY MEN

Even opponents of equaly have nced that the clock is tickg agast them; as New York Tim lumnist and gay marriage opponent Ross Douthat recently said, “If I were puttg money on the future of gay marriage, I would bet on . ”One of the nsistent featur of the gay rights movement over the past five s has been a belief progrs: Members of the gay muny and their alli have sisted that, over time, attus about homosexualy will only change for the better. Surveyg people 31 untri perdilly over 17 years on their attus toward homosexual behavr (“sexual relatns between two adults of the same sex”), rearchers rerd creased approval 27 natns and a crease of approval only four.

There is still a long way to go: Acrdg to the latt available data, majori or plurali only 15 natns agree wh the sentiment that homosexual behavr is “not wrong at all, ” while majori or plurali 20 believe homosexualy to be “always wrong. ” Neverthels, gay activists have tmpeted the poll as a posive there is one negative, and largely overlooked, fdg: The Czech Republic was one of the untri where the number of cizens who disapprove of homosexual behavr has creased, and by 14 pots.

ACCORDING TO THE poll, while 34 percent of Czechs believed homosexual behavr was eher “always wrong” or “almost always wrong” 1994, that number jumped to 48 percent 2008. Meanwhile, 1994, nearly half of the populatn believed that homosexual behavr was eher “wrong only sometim” or “not wrong at all. Disapproval of homosexualy tends to rrpond wh high religsy, but ’s hard to fd a more secular untry the world than the Czech Republic, which boasts one of the hight rerd rat of atheism.

Disapproval of homosexualy also tends to rrpond wh poor enomic velopment, yet the Czech enomy has grown imprsively sce the end of munism (the untry do not e the ro and has largely avoid the current, ntent-wi enomic crisis).

There’s also the not signifint fact that the cy is renowned as the gay porn pal of the world, and that, wh legal prostutn, is known gay circl as the Bangkok of Central Europe. On the legal si of thgs, homosexualy has been crimalized sce 1961, gays are allowed to serve openly the ary, and registered partnerships, which provi most of the same benefs as marriage (though not the abily to adopt children), were tablished 2006 and enjoy broad public scratch the untry’s veneer, and thgs aren’t exactly what they seem to be.

“I don’t thk the numbers are really all that surprisg bee I don’t thk Czech people are as liberal or acceptg as they thk they are, ” Aleš Rumpel, a Czech gay activist recently told The Prague Post.

” A recent natnal poll seems to nfirm this observatn, fdg that a slight majory of Czechs said that havg a gay neighbor would create an “issue. ” In other words, jt bee there is not an anized anti-gay movement the untry as there is , say, Poland (where the Catholic Church is enormoly fluential and where disapproval of homosexualy remas high), do not necsarily dite wispread approval.

A key reason for the untry’s passive homophobia is likely s history, which has been one of relentls homogenizatn, fueled by an tolerant natnalism often overlooked by sympathetic Wtern observers who like to pat the Czech Republic as a gutsy ltle natn surround by more powerful neighbors (namely, Germany and the USSR).