SOME PRIDE BUT MAINLY PREJUDICE FOR GAYS IN BALKANS

Wednesday, 10 July 2002 01:00

Croatia Gay (Feature)
By Zoran Radosavljevic

ZAGREB, Reuters - Daniel, 23, is madly in love with his new homosexual partner but carefully keeps his sex life secret from his family. In Croatia's conservative Roman Catholic society, it is probably for the best.

"I shudder to think of the moment when my mother finds out. It's bound to break her heart, not only because she wants grandchildren, but because of what neighbors will say," he said.

Most Croatian homosexuals feel the same but say things are changing and years of fearfully prowling remote city parks at night in search of sex partners may be coming to an end.

A public campaign for their rights has started, braving a traditional macho attitude entrenched across the Balkans.

At last month's Gay Pride parade -- the first in the former Yugoslav republic's capital -- some 200 gay men and lesbians made a one-hour tour of the city center, separated from a crowd of raging opponents by heavy police and private security.

The event was a muted affair. But it signaled a wind of change as Croatia, knocking on the European Union's doors, puts behind it the traumatic experience of its 1991-95 independence war and focuses on human rights and social issues.

"The time is ripe to go public, now that the war is over and we want to join European countries," said Dorino Manzin, a leader of the homosexual group Iskorak (Step Forward), which organized the parade.

"Some people think it's too early, to which I say: If it's too early now, it will be too early in 10 or 100 years as well," said Manzin, a 25-year-old student of Indian and Turkish culture and linguistics.

There has never been extensive research into the number of gays in Croatia but Manzin estimates the figure at up to 450,000, or 10 per cent of the population.
They can serve in the army but are not allowed to get married or adopt children.

"If a homosexual's life-long companion is dying in hospital, he is not allowed to visit because he is not family.

"And after death, everything the couple have earned in their lifetime will go to the family, which has previously probably renounced the deceased," he said.

Manzin said most homosexuals, like Daniel, face the pressure of leading double lives. Small surprise, then, that no public figure -- politician, pop singer or fashion designer -- has ever come out and said they were gay.

"If our sexual orientation is known, we are harassed by our families, at work, when applying for work. We live life in fear. We must look for partners and at the same time keep it secret or risk that someone might feel provoked and kill us," Manzin said.

There is one public gay club in Zagreb, although its owners prefer to call it "a place of tolerance". Patrons, mostly young men and women in their 20s, say this is one place where they feel free to hold hands or exchange kisses in public.

Psychologist Mirjana Krizmanic said Croatia was "a primitive society, without tolerance for people who are different".

"The church also weighs in a lot, as its respectable theologians publicly say homosexuality is a disease," she said.

In a poll published in the Vecernji List newspaper earlier this year, some 58 per cent of those surveyed said they regard gays as normal people with a different sexual orientation.

However, 66 per cent opposed their demand to be allowed to get married, while 72 percent thought they should not be permitted to adopt children.

Manzin said homosexuals were not demanding special rights. "We are not asking to be tax exempt or to have privileges at work. We only demand that the rights of the majority are extended to our minority," he said.

In neighboring Yugoslavia, a federal law envisaging prison sentences for homosexuality -- although never really implemented -- was scrapped in 1994, but gays still have no legal rights.

A gay parade in Belgrade last year turned nasty as soccer fans and ultra-nationalists attacked the participants and injured dozens, while an Orthodox priest shouted that homosexuality was "a deviation that should be condemned and medically treated".

Attila Kovacs, editor of the country's first non-porn gay magazine Decko (Boy), said things were improving very slowly. He said the gay community in Yugoslavia had to be more discreet than its Western counterparts.

"We are making almost imperceptible advances ... and we cannot use methods accepted in Western Europe," he said, adding that he tried to raise heterosexual people's awareness mainly by talking to people.

Yugoslavia, a country of some 10 million, hosts two gay clubs, one in the capital Belgrade and one in Novi Sad, in the more liberal northern Vojvodina province.

In Bosnia, another former Yugoslav republic, a law banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation will probably be passed this month, after lobbying from local rights groups.

However, Elis Frkalovic, head of The Youth Against AIDS group, said homosexuality was still a taboo.

"The tradition and culture in Bosnia do not allow homosexuality. There is no possibility to even start a dialogue about homosexuals here," Frkalovic told Reuters.

One of the reasons behind the slow progress across the Balkans is that social issues such as gay rights took a back seat during the ethnic wars of the last decade.

Zarko Puhovski, head of Croatia's Helsinki Committee human rights group, said he was burdened with too many more pressing issues during the 1991-95 war to even think of homosexuals.

"At that time people were being killed, abducted, evicted. Subconsciously, we thought gay problems were a luxury in such circumstances and did not give them too much thought.

"Things are normalizing now, but as long as we have state television that thinks homosexuality is a deviation that should be dealt with in late night science programs, we will be the Balkans and not Europe," he said.

(Additional reporting by Beti Bilandzic in Belgrade and Daria Sito-Sucic in Sarajevo)

REUTERS wjfs

Wednesday, 10 July 2002

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