:the Church, the Law & Pride:

Only a week after the riot, the long awaited general anti-discrimination law was passed in the Government and was sent to ratification to Parliament. Or so we thought. 15 hours before the parliamentary meeting was supposed to start, leading politicians got a call from the Serbian Orthodox Church and the parliamentary meeting about the law was cancelled! The church “had a problem“ with two articles of this law. Not surprisingly, those articles were the ones that regulate rights of other so called “non-traditional“ religious groups – and others that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Now, the church, just like all other stakeholders, was invited to numerous public debates in the period of over six months where they had an equal opportunity to express their opinion and influence this law. However, they didn’t bother. They put themselves above the so called constitution and used their influence on our ever-confused government to demand that those two articles be erased from the law. And they almost got away with it!

They got support from all other “traditional” churches (Jewish, Muslim and Catholic) and fabulously manipulated both “people“ and right wing politicians, scaring them with a lie that anti-discrimination law will make gay marriages possible (consequently leading to apocalypse of the Serbian nation). They kept insisting on that non-existing part of the law, even saying that they will be accused for discrimination if refusing to marry gay couples (!). Their counting on traditional homophobia worked oh-so-well coz in no time many politicians believed them and named this a “faggot” law, obviously without even reading it. And even though this law applies to all vulnerable groups, prohibits gender based discrimination, discrimination of Roma, protects children, the disabled and so on... regulates workers and syndicalism related rights – in the eyes of the majority it stayed the “faggot” law and it was finally adopted after 22 days of negotiations, and 500 (!) proposed amendments out of which only 6 were adopted in the parliament. Gender expression was totally excluded. They made a bad compromise, coz discrimination based on gender/sex is now illegal "including discrimination of people who changed their sex", but that still excludes a whole bunch of transgendered people who have no intention of changing their sex.

The question is – what’s next? I don’t think that laws can change people’s minds, but if we say that it is important to have this law, the next step would be implementing it. But, to do so, people need to step out and report violence. For example (I’m talking only of LGBT context here) if you are subjected to violence you have to report it to the police, then go to court, which for many means "coming out as gay" publicly - which is one of the reasons why people never did it in the first place. I don’t really see how this law will change that.

I guess, now it’s up to those who are discriminated to use this law on their behalf, which is a tiny part of the more general picture in which things will change in societal level. Surely, this law will not make homophobes change their attitude and start thinking that we are "normal" but it could at least prevent them from being violent and getting away with it. In some years from now...

Riding on the excitement of mainstreaming LGBT issues in Serbia, activists announced their third attempt to organize a Gay pride manifestation this summer. Surely, I’ll be writing more about this in the near future, but surprisingly general secretary of Ministry for human rights announced it will support the Pride. “Wow” is all I can say! Apparently, things are moving forward when it comes to human rights of queers.

BUT, all this unprecedented LGBT visibility had its price. A popular gay club (one out of two) in Belgrade was attacked and stoned twice within two weeks. Their management announced that it will be closed by the end of April. The countdown is on.

Even though I’m not entirely sure attacks are the reason why they are closing, I’d bet they have something to do with it.