In Prague, a Fight for Gay Rights Goes International

[Swede]

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Earlier that month, just days before the Czech capital was set to hold its first-ever gay pride parade on August 13, Klaus's senior advisor Petr Hajek wrote, "The prepared Prague gay carnival is a pressure action and a political demonstration of a world with deformed values," referring to homosexuals as "deviant." (Hajek had previously got into hot water for claiming that the September 11 attacks were a U.S. Government conspiracy, and for claiming, on the day that Osama bin Laden died, that the terrorist never existed but was a "media fiction.") In response, Ambassadors from 13 countries, including the United States, signed onto a statement expressing their "solidarity with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities in the Czech Republic, supporting their right to use the occasion to march together peacefully and lawfully, in order to raise awareness of the specific issues that affect them."

Rather than distance himself from Hajek's remarks, President Klaus endorsed them. "I do not feel any pride in the event either," he said in a statement posted on his website. The parade, he wrote, was a manifestation of "homosexualism." He added that the term "deviant," far from being derogatory, is "a neutral term in terms of value." Klaus later derided the Western ambassadors for meddling in his country's affairs. "I can't imagine any Czech ambassador daring to interfere by petition with internal political discussion in any democratic country," he told the Czech News Agency CTK.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/09/in-prague-a-fight-for-gay-rights-goes-international/245064/

[xchrom]

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