Bulgaria’s gay boys and girls hoped to have their inaugural pride this year. But, as happens, the religious right’s raining on their parade:
Bulgaria’s influential Orthodox Church on Friday called on authorities to ban the country’s first ever gay pride march.
The march, planned for Saturday, has already been moved by from a downtown area of the capital, Sofia, to a remote park after municipal authorities city security concerns.
The church argued the event would undermine the country’s Christian traditions.
“Bulgarian society needs healthy, strong and moral individuals to build new life on the indestructible foundation of faith, prayer, repentance, honor, Christian culture and morals,” a statement said.
Like a broken record, those people…
Nikola Ivanov
The Orthodox Church was the least problem, nobody ever listens to it in Bulgaria anyway. The problem was more a political one, and this has been the hype of the week in Bulgaria. The right extremists made a huge public dispute against the parade, openly asking for violent behaciour against the parade on national TV… The Parade had around 50-100 people marching the streets of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Almost as many wre the police officers guaranteeng the safety of the people invovled. 88 people were arrested for attempting agression against the parade. 18 of them were under the age of 18. Under those arested is the leader of one of Bulgaria’s right extremist parties, Mr. Rasate, who was the one to initiate the entire public scandal, claiming that homos are all pedophiles and the rot of society, claiming that people should be intolerant against such ‘abnormality’. Well, now he was arrested, had spend a night behing bars after which he’s been bailed out. Nevertheless, he’s facing legal charges and a court process very soon.