We're starting to think that the European Union's much-touted Charter of Fundamental Human Rights is a bunch of unenforceable bunk after what happened in Latvia's capital city over the weekend. First Poland elects a couple of twin fascists that are openly disdainful of gay rights, and now police in Riga, Latvia allow neo-Nazis to trap a group of gay activists inside a church on Saturday and do nothing to get them safely out.

The gay group, who was recently barred from holding a Pride parade by Riga's mayor, were having an LGBT rights prayer service (that's a new one for us) when the church was surrounded by neo-Nazis. Rather than disperse, the fascist group grew larger and the gays inside were forced to exit through the protesting mob, dodging bags of poo and having insults screamed in their faces.

The President of Latvia has denounced the incident as "unacceptable," but those words mean little when skinheads are so blatantly allowed to rule the streets. We will wait and see if the EU issues any sanctioned before pronouncing them utterly gutless and ineffectual.

Mob Attacks Gays As Police Look On [365 Gay]

• What if our mom had kidnapped us to keep our dad from turning us gay? Our life would have turned out so differently. We might be married with kids and certainly not writing this fabulous blog. That would be awful! Thank goodness that the awful Florida woman who kidnapped her son for precisely that reason is no longer allowed any contact with her son. [365 Gay]

• Howard Dean fired the gay outreach director of the Democratic National Committee yesterday in what some see as an act of retaliation for harsh words offered up in April by the man's partner. Howard has been having a hard time with the gays lately, who have criticized him and the Committee for not doing more to counter all the anti-gay-marriage ballot initiatives that are floating in the air for the 2006 elections. [Washington Blade]

• Homophobic Russian asshole update: 39 of them have been arrested after causing violence for two days outside a gay club in Moscow. [Pink News]

• In Ireland a new study has revealed that there are 10,000 gay citizens who would marry if they were allowed by the law. Just think how good it would be for the traditional family if all those people could tie knot. [GCN]

• For a state that doesn't seem to like the gays all that much, there sure is going to be a lot of "gay" on the Colorado ballots this November. [Rocky Mountain News]

• A group of skinheads in São Paolo attacked two men and two women on Saturday, leaving man critically injured with stab wounds. [Made In Brazil & Washington Blade]

• Gays participated today for the first time in Israel's Holocaust memorial services. [365 Gay]

• The German Catholic Church decides not to hold a Gay Pride service in Bavaria because it might send the wrong message. [Pink News]

• As if we needed another reason not to go to Long Island, the domestic partnership registry has been voted down in a sneak attack by its opponents. [Newsday]