Gay Parade in Warsaw Meets Jeers From Some

[Omaha Steve]

Source: NY Times

By NICHOLAS KULISH

WARSAW — Rainbow flags flying, Village People and Madonna songs pumping from the floats, drag queens waving like royalty to the crowds: some things are the same at gay pride parades everywhere. But the thousands of police officers holding back clusters of jeering, egg-throwing youths here on Saturday served as a reminder that Poland was not quite Holland when it came to gay demonstrations.

Gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals not just from Poland but from all over Europe and North America marched and danced their way through downtown Warsaw, calling for greater tolerance and equal rights, in particular the right to marry or at least to be joined in civil partnerships.

The event, the first Europewide gay pride parade held in a former Communist bloc country, revealed a place where gays and lesbians aspired to the level of acceptance found in Western European cities like Amsterdam and London, yet remained part of a deeply Catholic society that was still significantly more opposed to homosexuality than in the West and where politicians did not seem ready, or perhaps willing, to change that.

It was most likely the largest gathering of its kind in Polish history, but its 8,000 participants made up just a fraction of the 50,000 people who took part in last year’s parade, in Zurich. For the most part, Saturday’s parade went smoothly, but it was met with resistance from a population ill at ease with open displays of homosexuality. Many gay men and lesbians here say they continue to fear repercussions from coming out of the closet.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/world/europe/18poland.html?_r=1&partner=EXCITE&ei=5043

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Leszek Szymanski/PAP, via European Pressphoto Agency

Thousands of gay men and lesbians marched in support of equal rights and greater tolerance in the EuroPride 2010 parade in Warsaw.

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[ck4829]

2. Sounds like progress is being made, but there is still lots of work to be done. K&R.

[robcon]

3. Why did the NYT lead with "Jeers for Some"???????

Shitty focus on the negative.

[msongs]

4. as a nation Poles wholeheartedly participated in the nazi exterminations even though they themselves

were in many ways victims of the same.

[emilyg]

7. Beg to differ. I was there.

[lunatica]

5. So did anyone cheer too?

I'm sure far more cheered than jeered. Most homophobes stay away from the gay parades in droves. Nothing like trying to control the message.

[defendandprotect]

6. Odd that there is no comment by the Vatican . . . ???