Photo by lilit
As promised in my previous post, here’s a (quick, sorry I’m a bit under the weather today) update on the anti-discrimination law situation.
Well, unsurprisingly, the situation attracted much media interest with it being the topic on a whole host of programmes; both views for and against the withdrawal of the anti-discrimination law were aired on TV, as well as in parliamentary debates. It turned out that parliament withdrew the law on the basis of a letter from the Orthodox Church, with the support of the Belgrade Roman Catholic Church, the Islamic Community of Serbia and the Evangelical Church, and a quick telephone meeting with ministers who were skiing/discussing the global financial crisis at the Serbia’s very own Davos in Kopaonik.
Essentially this whole mess is about giving the LGBT population in Serbia the same basic rights as anyone else, such as not getting fired from work because of their sexual orientation. Those opposing the law are willing to risk Serbian citizens being allowed to travel to the EU without visas simply because of their own homophobia, not to mention delay a law which prohibits discrimination against many other communities. One politician, I can’t remember his name, said something along the lines of “I have nothing against homosexuals…but if it’s homosexuals who have to lead us to Europe, then let’s stay in Serbia and look after the sheep.” The contradiction should be quite obvious…
Anyway, the interior minister, Ivica Dacic, announced yesterday that the anti-discrimination law would be adopted by parliament by the end of April. Let’s hope it will be and that it remains unchanged – for the sake of combating homophobia and allowing the freedom of religion (still not sure why the religious community was unhappy with that?!), as well as for the European future of this country.
There was also a small gathering today of around 200 people in central Belgrade protesting against the law’s withdrawal and clericalisation. The protest was guarded by a heavy police presence and passed by peacefully.
[UPDATE]
The religious community are concerned that they could be charged under this law if they were to read passages from the bible prohibiting homosexuality. In my opinion, religious communities should have the right to believe/preach what they want, as long as it does not promote hatred and discrimination in the wider community against any one group. I’m not entirely clued up on how anti-discrimination/anti-hatred laws work in the UK, for example, but they seem to cater for both communities. Perhaps, such a compromise can be made in this case?
However, regardless of that, the blatant homophobia coming from some very public politicians has no excuse.
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on Mar 10th, 2009 at 9:25 am
Still unsure? Didn’t read 8th comment in previous post on same story? Ok, I have some spare time in the morning.. lol..
So, If I like a businessman say “you are fags, go f… yourself, you wont work here!”, by that law’s proposal, I’d probably go to jail (which is fine by me).
If a school teacher says “If you play with your same-sex friends something, you’ll get bad marks” – that’s for the jail too, right?
But, if a “guy between God and us” reads bible/qur’an/tora/etc. where somebody long before him wrote down what’s right and whats wrong, a.k.a. moral and when it says gays = lust, sin, etc… what will happen? A priest will go to jail?
Well, that’s the problem there. Because, nobody thought about those little details, when they wrote the law. Or even worse, they did :$
So, religious communities, want some things to be bolded, specified… or they want to be excluded from that law, or something. Because, if such law passes the Parliament, it’s against the Constitution, where everybody has right to teach and live by his/her religious codes.
Btw, good morning
on Mar 10th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Morning Obelix
Sorry, no I didn’t read it before but I have now. For those who don’t speak Serbian the Church is concerned that if they were to read passages from the bible which prohibit homosexuality, they would be accused of discrimination.
Fair point to be honest, I suppose. If it’s a religious teaching, then by all means those who wish to preach it to their followers have the right to do so. In the UK, we have anti-discrimination laws, but that doesn’t mean that religious people can’t believe what they want to believe…it just means you can’t discriminate against people at work, school, in the street, for services etc. I don’t believe a priest has gone to jail for reading the bible.
Perhaps the laws are written differently, I don’t know nor have the time to really go and study it all. It’s a complicated situation but we can see that the church doesn’t like being discriminated against, so why is it OK to discriminate or hold back the rights of others?
on Mar 10th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Could be wrong, but the Orthodox Church may also be worried that the law might be called on by the “lesser” religious communities, aka evil cults, brainwashing sects (you know, like Baptists, Methodists, Satanists…) to demand more rights, not currently granted under the Law on Religions. Currently, the “Big 7″ are favoured under that law, which has been pretty controversial from the start – Tadi? was personally not in favour of it, for example.
on Mar 10th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Found it! All details are here:
http://www.spc.rs/sr/zajednick.....a_zakona_o
Sorry, only serbian (cyrilic) version now.
on Mar 10th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
@Mark,
Yeah, that’s a good point – it hadn’t crossed my mind. Not familiar at all with the Law on Religion, I just presumed all religions had the same rights and that, obviously, cults were banned. Very interesting, thanks for pointing that out!
@Obelix,
Thanks for linking to the Orthodox Church statement.
on Mar 12th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
There was an article in Borba yesterday talking about this aspect of the law, though it didn’t actually suggest that was the reason the churches were against it: http://www.borba.rs/content/view/3503/123/
Only Serbian unfortunately…
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