Openly gay Prime Minister of Luxembourg with his partner welcoming openly lesbian Prime Minister of Serbia and her partner ahead of the first official visit between two LGBT Heads of Government.
Serbia is such a weird place when it comes to politics, and especially LGBT rights. On one hand the serbian-orthodox church is pretty darn ultraconservative (more so than even the catholic church, less so than the russian orthodox), nationalism is fairly strong (or at least it was when I last checked), there is a significant minority of people who thinks that being gay should be a crime, even more people who think that being gay is an illness and pride marches frequently devolve into riots due to far-right interference.
On the other hand the country has a lesbian prime minister, a serbian police who (unlike the police in Russia, a traditional serbian ally, and unlike the police in many of their neighbouring countries) do not stand by idly when these anti-LGBT riots happen (although that might be because the Serbian police likes to get into a scrap), the ruling party is pro-west (despite the fact that NATO is...not serb friendly*) etc
*The Yugoslavian conflict left European-Serbian relationships...bad. The ICTY has done at least some good in that, with the possible exception of some mid-level bosniaks, the people responsible for the worst stuff that happened are either dead or are paying for their crimes.
I’m Serbian so let me help you out and clear some confusion. The ruling “progressive” party and its utterly autocratic leader Vučić are absolute populists so he chose her as prime minister because that looks good in the eyes of the west on one hand, and on the other because she’s (with her brother) one of his best partners in crime (lots of it) and she’s completely loyal and obedient. Basically a puppet. The vast majority of Serbia is still homophobic as fuck. Btw she is openly gay but you’ll never hear her standing up for gay rights or anything and she is just ignoring insults that even come from members of government. She just keeps counting the phat cash. It is the most corrupt government in Serbia’s history and that’s saying a lot.
yottskry on September 9th, 2019 at 12:25 UTC »
Is nobody going to talk about the elephant in the room?
fiendishrabbit on September 9th, 2019 at 14:00 UTC »
Serbia is such a weird place when it comes to politics, and especially LGBT rights. On one hand the serbian-orthodox church is pretty darn ultraconservative (more so than even the catholic church, less so than the russian orthodox), nationalism is fairly strong (or at least it was when I last checked), there is a significant minority of people who thinks that being gay should be a crime, even more people who think that being gay is an illness and pride marches frequently devolve into riots due to far-right interference.
On the other hand the country has a lesbian prime minister, a serbian police who (unlike the police in Russia, a traditional serbian ally, and unlike the police in many of their neighbouring countries) do not stand by idly when these anti-LGBT riots happen (although that might be because the Serbian police likes to get into a scrap), the ruling party is pro-west (despite the fact that NATO is...not serb friendly*) etc
*The Yugoslavian conflict left European-Serbian relationships...bad. The ICTY has done at least some good in that, with the possible exception of some mid-level bosniaks, the people responsible for the worst stuff that happened are either dead or are paying for their crimes.
Shpritzer on September 9th, 2019 at 15:22 UTC »
I’m Serbian so let me help you out and clear some confusion. The ruling “progressive” party and its utterly autocratic leader Vučić are absolute populists so he chose her as prime minister because that looks good in the eyes of the west on one hand, and on the other because she’s (with her brother) one of his best partners in crime (lots of it) and she’s completely loyal and obedient. Basically a puppet. The vast majority of Serbia is still homophobic as fuck. Btw she is openly gay but you’ll never hear her standing up for gay rights or anything and she is just ignoring insults that even come from members of government. She just keeps counting the phat cash. It is the most corrupt government in Serbia’s history and that’s saying a lot.