This Saturday, 28 June, Bratislava will be host to the annual Rainbow Pride march, culminating a full week of accompanying events, with the organisers more intent than ever to push for equal rights for the LGBT community in the wake of recent developments in Slovak legislation and other adverse expressions of society.
The following is a statement of the Rainbow Pride movement about this year’s event, which officially starts at 1pm on Hviezdoslavovo namestie.
– Traditional Dúhový PRIDE Bratislava will be happening in the streets of Bratislava for the fifth time. Organizers of the event decided that this year, they will more strongly emphasize values of democratic and open society for everybody and the need for public debate with reliable arguments and not with prejudice and hateful assaults.
“Since last PRIDE in September of previous year, the atmosphere in our country has gotten significantly worse: beginning with a victory of a openly extremist candidate in district elections, continuing with “pastiersky” letter of bishops form Slovakia, in which we were targeted as “actors of culture of death” and the fulfillment of the desire of the same sex couples to be recognized before law as a threat to the existence of the nation and the creation of different “civic” initiatives calling for limiting the rights of LGBTI people under the excuse of protection of traditional values, ending with the agreement of two biggest political parties – Smer-SD and KDH – on constitutional sanctification of only one family form” Romana Schlesinger writes and explains how this year pride will differ from the previous years: “We know and feel that it is no longer only us ,LGBTI people, but also it is all the families of single, divorced or widowed moms and dads, same sex couples with or without kids and the foster families, that are damaged and dishonored by such a policy. We know the best how our families work, because we live in them every day whether it is in good or bad times. We want to show Slovakia, that every family, no matter how many members it has, whether it is with or without kids, whether it is two men, two women or only one person as a parent, it is worth to be respected and recognized by the state, respected by society and be equal.” Dúhový Pride Bratislava is the Slovak version of a pride for human rights of LGBTQ people, their social and political equality and their pride. In the year 2014 it is organized by civic associations Queer Leaders Forum, Iniciatívna Inakosť, NoMantinels, TransFúzia and informal activists.
„Government party has, by constitutional ban of same sex marriages, joined a group of organizations who are trying to change the character of our state. They blame others for undemocratic approach; however, they themselves are trying to limit the rights of minority, without hearing out their opinion, and doing all this with the tyranny of majority. They warn about spreading ideologies but they themselves base all public politics on one religion. They warn from new totality, however, they themselves want to limit the freedom of choice and dictate people how to live by the constitutional law “Limiting the rights of minority has always turned against the majority. Even today the majority of families are not based on the relationship between one man and one woman. The will to limit the diversity of family forms can increase the unpopularity of marriage itself “, says Martin Macko (Iniciatívna Inakosť). “This fight is most easily observable on the process of creation of State strategy of support and protection for human rights in Slovak Republic. On the Pride on June 28 we will already know the result of it and also whether our constitution is going to change or not. Then you will have an opportunity to speak up”. Source: http://duhovypride.sk/en/
It is indeed sad that a people who have suffered repression for almost a thousand years have elected to base their newly created nation state on the same repressive measures that they struggled to cast off. Even sadder is the fact that a vociferous minority has engineered discrimination against another minority group and that the silent majority have accepted this.