Homophobia Is Alive and Kicking in European Politics and It’s Going Mainstream

iNEWS: All over the continent the far right are downplaying anti-LGBTQ violence – and in some cases, practising it

People in front of the Court House in Sofia, Bulgaria protest against homophobic attacks (Photo: Hristo Vladev/Getty)
It’s tempting to think that in Europe at least the LGBTQ community has virtually won its fight for equal rights.

In supposedly uptight Britain, same-sex couples on Strictly Come Dancing are told by straight judges to be a bit less… inhibited…

There are no same-sex shenanigans on Italy’s Ballando con le Stelle. But over there that’s the least of many gay people’s problems.

Thanks to the malign presence of the Vatican, and the nature of the far-right in its mainstream politics, Italy’s parliament is unable to pass a simple hate-crime law to combat the country’s (ample) homophobic violence – in spite of 10 years’ of trying.

Two far-right groupings voted last Wednesday to block the “Zan bill” in the Senate. Matteo Salvini’s League party and the even nastier “post-fascist” Fratelli d’Italia party led by Giorgia Meloni. Alessandro Zan is the politician and LGBTQ activist who promoted the bill.

National polls suggest they have the support of 24 per cent and 18 per cent of the Italian electorate, respectively. » | Michael Day, Chief Foreign Commentator | Published: Thursday, November 4, 2021; Updated, Friday, November 5, 2021

Austerity Anger Boosts European Extreme Parties
In the Netherlands and across Europe, the growing anger towards austerity measures is leading to a boost in support for the far-left and far-right parties. Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull reports from The Hague.

Related here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Europe's Gay Leaders: Out at The Top
TIME: When Iceland installed Johanna Sigurdardottir as Prime Minister last February, newspapers around the globe printed variations of the same headline: ICELAND APPOINTS WORLD'S FIRST GAY LEADER. Everywhere, that is, except Iceland. The Icelandic media didn't mention Sigurdardottir's sexuality for days, and only then to point out that the foreign press had taken an interest in their new head of state — a 67-year-old former flight attendant turned politician whom voters had consistently rated Iceland's most trustworthy politician. Sure, she was gay and had entered a civil partnership with another woman in 2002. But Icelanders hardly seemed to notice. "The media silence echoed the sentiment of the public. Nobody cared about her sexual orientation," says Margret Bjornsdottir, the director of the Institute for Public Administration and Politics at the University of Iceland. "Being gay is a nonissue here. It's considered unremarkable."

Buoyed by liberal attitudes such as those, politicians across Western Europe are stepping out of the closet and into their country's highest political offices. Eleven openly gay men and women now serve in the British Parliament, including two in the Cabinet. Last June, Nicolas Sarkozy appointed Frédéric Mitterrand, a gay television presenter, to the post of Minister of Culture. Paris' Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, tipped by some to contest the 2012 presidential race, is gay. And Guido Westerwelle, chairman of Germany's Free Democratic Party, has just become his country's Foreign Minister, joining a gay élite that includes the mayors of Berlin and Hamburg, Germany's two largest cities. Klaus Wowereit, Berlin's mayor, says coming out ahead of the 2001 mayoral race while under pressure from tabloids strengthened his campaign. "My confession might have contributed to my popularity," he says. "Many people appreciate honesty."

That's a far cry from the climate in most of the U.S., where — despite the recent election of Annise Parker, a gay woman, as mayor of Houston, America's fourth largest city — honesty can still end a gay politician's career. Openly gay politicians such as San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk began winning seats in U.S. cities with large gay populations in the 1970s. Progress has since slowed, says David Rayside, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto. He believes that the relative strength of incumbency in the U.S. creates a barrier to the corridors of power, as does "the strength of religious conservatives." Of the 511,000 elected offices in the U.S. — from local school boards way up to President — openly gay men and women occupy just 450 of them, according to the U.S.-based Victory Fund, an organization that offers financial support to gay political candidates. No openly gay person has ever sat in the Senate, and only three hold seats in the House of Representatives.

The gap between the U.S. and Europe doesn't just exist at the top: 49% of Americans polled by the Pew Research Center in 2007 believed that society should "accept" homosexuality. Contrast that with attitudes in Europe where more than 80% of French, Germans and Spaniards had such a view. Only Catholic and conservative Poles felt as uncomfortable with the idea as Americans. Denis Dison, a spokesman for the Victory Fund, says those attitudes can make it difficult for gay people to campaign — let alone obtain office. "In places where the climate isn't friendly, it's hard for them to even go into a town hall meeting or public forum because they get such nasty questions." The European Difference >>> William Lee Adams | Monday, January 18, 2010

The Return of Religion to Europe
THE JAPAN TIMES ONLINE: BUDAPEST — It's a well-worn contrast: the United States is religious, Europe is secular. Yet, in some respects, this cliched opposition has actually been reversed recently: Religion played virtually no role during the last American presidential election, while in a range of different European countries major controversies about religion have flared up, suggesting that questions of faith are back at the center of European politics.

Consider French President Nicolas Sarkozy. On numerous occasions, he has argued that his country needs to rethink its traditional strict separation of state and religion. In particular, according to the twice-divorced self-confessed "cultural Catholic," France should develop a "positive secularism." In contrast to a negative separation, which according to Sarkozy "excludes and denounces," a positive separation invites "dialogue" and recognizes the social benefits of religion.

In a much criticized speech in Rome at the end of 2007, Sarkozy acknowledged the Christian roots of France, "the eldest daughter of the Church"; he also praised Islam during a visit to Saudi Arabia. Now he wants state subsidies for faith-based organizations — a policy proposal that upsets his many secularist critics.

This new appeal to religion — after a long period when it was taken for granted that secularization would make religion less and less politically relevant — is not an exclusively French phenomenon. The Spanish People's Party tried hard to mobilize Catholics during the election campaign in March 2008. The church supported the PP against Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose advocacy of gay marriage, more relaxed divorce laws and the removal of compulsory religion classes from the national curriculum, upset many religious conservatives. Zapatero eventually felt it necessary to tell a Vatican envoy that Spanish bishops should stop meddling in the elections (which the prime minister won).

In Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi precipitated a constitutional crisis by trying to rush through emergency legislation to prevent a comatose patient from being taken off life support. This reminded many observers of what America's Republican Party tried to do to demonstrate its "pro-life commitments" during George W. Bush's presidency.

Finally, there is Britain, usually seen as perhaps the most secular country in Western Europe, and thus the least likely candidate to see the return of religion of any kind (outside its Muslim community). Under David Cameron's leadership, the newly invigorated Conservative Party is listening to a number of thinkers, dubbed "red Tories," who urge the party to turn its back on Thatcherism and embrace civil society, local community, the family and, not least, religion as a major force in fostering responsible social behavior. >>> Jan-Werner Mueller*, © 2009 Project Syndicate/Institute for Human Sciences | Sunday, July 5, 2009

*Jan-Werner Mueller is associate professor of politics at Princeton University and an Open Society fellow at Central European University, Budapest.

Europe Swings Right as Recession Deepens
TELEGRAPH BLOGS – AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD: The establisment Left had been crushed across most of Europe, just as it was in the early 1930s.

We have seen the ultimate crisis of capitalism -- what Marxist-historian Eric Hobsbawm calls the "dramatic equivalent of the collapse of the Soviet Union" -- yet socialists have completely failed to reap any gain from the seeming vindication of their views.

It is not clear why a chunk of the blue-collar working base has swung almost overnight from Left to Right, but clearly we are seeing the delayed detonation of two political time-bombs: rising unemployment and the growth of immigrant enclaves that resist assimilation.

Note that Right-wing incumbents in France (Sarkozy) and Italy (Berlusconi), survived the European elections unscathed.
Left-wing incumbents in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, and of course Britain were either slaughtered, or badly mauled.

The Dutch Labour party that has dominated national politics for the last half century fell behind the anti-immigrant movement of Geert Wilders (banned from entering Britain). It serves them right for the staggeringly stupid decision to force through the European Constitution (renamed Lisbon) after it had already been rejected by their own voters by a fat margin in the 2005 referendum.

The Portuguese Socialists face Siberian exile after seeing a 18pc drop in their vote. The slow drip-drip of debt-deflation for a boom-bust Club Med state, trapped in the eurozone with an overvalued exchange rate (viz core Europe, and the world), has suddenly turned into a torrent. The country is already in deflation (-0.6pc in April). It has been suffering its own version of Japanese perma-slump for half a decade.

Portugal's opposition is calling for an immediate vote of no censure, while the Government clings to constitutional fig-leaves to hide its naked legitimacy. "O Governo está na sua plenitude de funções," said the chief spokesman. You can guess what that means. Not long for this world, surely.

In Germany and Austria, the Social Democrats suffered their worst defeats since World War Two. I don't say that with pleasure. A vibrant labour-SPD movement is vital for German political stability. It was the peeling away of Socialist support during the Bruning deflation of the Depression years -- so like today's Weber-Trichet deflation -- that led to the catastrophic election of July 1932, when the Nazis and Communists took half the Reichstag seats. >>> Ambrose Evans-Pritchard | Monday, June 08, 2009