More open mindness form our part is very hard. Part of it, I feel (and please contradict me if I'm wrong), is because our official (and most practiced) religion is one of the most traditional and inflexible of them all. Then there are the people coming from the communist regime that, apart from the personality cult, also promoted the same strong traditional family beliefs.

So maybe Romania is a perfect country for such an event, because if they would be fully accepted by our society then there would be no need for this parade.

 

I find the concept of gay parades vaguely repulsive. Of course I don't believe people should be persecuted for their sexual orientation. But is this sort of display the right approach for achieving equality? I think it just makes homosexuals seem more alien. I just can't imagine myself participating in a 'straight parade'. Sexuality is something too private and too special to be worn on a t-shirt for strangers to pass judgement on.

 

If these were the early 1900, would you be parading along with the other women demanding the right to vote? Because I see this to be kind of the same thing; from you're answer I take it you would be not, but I'm asking anyway, just to be sure. :)

 

Sorry but I don't see a connection with voting at all. Voting is politics. Politics is public.

Sexuality is too personal & intimate to be politicized. None of us are as vulnerable about our political opinions as we are about our sexuality.

I can imagine talking about my sexual issues in my diary, or on an anonymous blog or with my partner or my doctor or very close friends who I trust to be understanding & unjudgemental. But to get up and give a public speech about it to complete strangers? To tell untold numbers of people who maybe psyhcos for all I know that these are my sexual preferences & I want you all to approve of them?

Sorry I just can't get my head around that. In order to identify with people, you have to be able to put yourself in their place. And I simply can't imagine a situation where I'd be prevailed upon to do this.

 

Ryan, Lou, I think you are both right to some extent.

Yes, sex is a private matter, not public. On the other hand, everyone should be free to have a sexual orientation. When parents will stop trying to cure their children of homosexuality, when people will stop having weird reactions towards gay couples, when gay people will no longer be forced to hide in order not to be abused, only then sexuality will stop being a public matter.

Until then, my guess is it will stay public...And my argument is our past: did you hear of any gay pride events during the Roman or Greek empire? I didn't, although homosexuality for example was something quite common.

 

Yes, but Romans and Greeks killed their own kind (even their own family), were greedy, not to mention they worshiped multiple gods etc. Society changes and the rules it enforces on you also change. A century ago people laughed at women wanting the right to vote and generally be considered equal. Just as they now frown upon those having different sexual preferences than them wanting to not be considered freaks or mentally sick. And who knows what else will follow, that will seem outrageous at first, then rational, then obvious and implicit.