LOVE FOR ALL! II
Tuesday, 10 July 2007 12:40
The campaign “Love for All” was started because of a high degree of homophobia present in our society which to great extent comes from public spaces – the media before all, but also from influential intellectuals, celebrities, cultural emissaries…We believe that speaking about this problem is immensely important, since quite often the notion of human rights, freedom of speech and information is being abused and turned into sensationalism and a way to gain political points.
Unfortunately, within that what we call hate speech, intolerance directed towards individuals of different sexual orientation than heterosexual, as well as towards individuals who do not conform to the patriarchal gender/sexual patterns remains often represented.
Politicians who serve as representatives of social institutions, representatives of the leading religious communities, public individuals and intellectuals very often use homophobia as a legitimate – socially accepted in Serbia – tool of political disqualification.
However, such an attitude constructs broader social view where different sexual orientation than heterosexual is simply not accepted. Augmented by political and religious leaders influence this rejection often turns into hatred resulting not only through exclusion on different levels, but through explicit violence.
Also, the influence of past wars on the territory of ex-Yugoslavia has left numerous consequences.
The growth of nationalism, militant atmosphere, and lack of democratic values has brought about homophobia to become justified and accepted by the majority. Generally – political and cultural climate are still very repressive towards marginalized groups.
After long efforts to have certain changes in the legislation (today, Serbia possesses four laws where discrimination based on sexual orientation is prohibited), there is still no general Anti-discrimination Act and the legal system does not recognizes hate crime.
In order to presage about mentioned problems and appeal to the media and other public spaces where very often hate speech against gay and lesbian population is present, Labris – lesbian human rights organization has started “Love for All” – a campaign against violence and discrimination against lesbians and gay men.
The campaign officially lasted for a month (April-May 2007) and it encompassed twenty billboards in Belgrade, promotional materials and media appearances.
At the very beginning problems occurred.
Despite Labris’ readiness to pay the full price for the commercial publication and the fact that all preparations were legally impeccably conducted, the City traffic company and three marketing agencies denied to put up campaign materials and billboards saying the campaign is of a high risk.
The billboards were accepted, with small compromises on our part to the MediaMax agency.
In addition, having in mind that campaign related to the problems of violence and discrimination of lesbians and gay men, many media did not find any interest to report about it until billboards were smeared by messages of hate.
An integral part of the campaign was a media conference held on May 8th, 2007 in Media Centre where the director Janko Baljak, Sasa Gajin from the Centre for promotion of legal studies, Sladjana Novakovic from the Rende publishing house and Marija Savic from Labris spoke.
After the conference media interest for the campaign grew and we continued with our regular activities related to its promotion: media appearances, open discussion and campaign materials’ distribution…
If you want to support the campaign in any way please contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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