48 Europe The EconomistNovember 21st 2020
I
reland and Lithuania have much in common. Both are small,
Catholic, Europhile, enjoy a tricky relationship with a larger
neighbour and have cuisines heavy on potatoes. Both also left it
late when it came to gay rights. Homosexual acts were decriminal-
ised only in 1993 in both countries. But since then, things have di-
verged. In the space of a generation, Ireland went from consider-
ing homosexuality a crime to allowing gay marriage and electing a
gay taioseach with little fuss. Life for gay Lithuanians has been less
happy. Laws banning gay “propaganda” are still on the books. Civil
partnerships, let alone same-sex marriage, remain a pipe-dream.
Merely living without fear would be an improvement: 84% of lgbt
people in Lithuania are not comfortable revealing their identity.
Where an iron curtain once split Europe, a rainbow curtain now
divides the continent. In western Europe, gay people enjoy a quali-
ty of life better than anywhere on the planet. They are free to marry
and adopt children, and are protected from discrimination in all
walks of life. Things in eastern Europe are not so good. In seven eu
countries, including Poland, Hungary and Romania, less than half
the population agree that gay people should have the same rights
as straight ones. Civil partnerships are not offered in six eucoun-
tries, all in central and eastern Europe. Poland has introduced
“lgbt-free zones”, a legally meaningless gimmick with the practi-
cal effect of declaring open season on gay people. Meanwhile,
Hungary is working on a law that will ban gay couples from adopt-
ing. For gay people behind the Rainbow Curtain—which covers
about a quarter of the eu’s population—life can be grim.
For a continent that prides itself on gay rights, the split between
west and east is a scar. After all, gay rights hold outsize importance
in European life. Denmark was the first country to allow civil part-
nerships, and the Netherlands was the first to introduce gay mar-
riage, in 2001, the same year that it allowed same-sex couples to
adopt. In Brussels, gay rights are an area of diversity euofficials are
comfortable talking about. When race is brought up officials
wince, reminded of the almost preposterous lack of non-white
faces within euinstitutions. There are, however, plenty of gay peo-
ple in the corridors of power. The Eurovision Song Contest, one of
the few transcontinental events, is a festival of camp. (Although
not for everyone: the year that Conchita Wurst, an Austrian dragact, won the event, Poland entered a decidedly heteronormative
act featuring buxom women seductively churning butter.)
Improved rights for gay people were a quid pro quo for mem-
bership when the euexpanded eastward from 2004. Romania, for
instance, was forced to ditch its law against homosexuality before
it was allowed to enter in 2007. With the prospect of eumember-
ship looming over the political class, complaints were confined to
bishops in the Romanian Orthodox church. (Sample quote: “We
want to enter Europe, not Sodom and Gomorrah.”). Once they were
in the club, however, this leverage disappeared and backsliding be-
gan. When Law and Justice, the governing right-wing conservative
party from Poland, first came to power in 2005, one of its immedi-
ate actions was to scrap the government department responsible
for lgbtpolicies. Things were so bad that Robert Biedron, a Polish
mep and one of the country’s few prominent lgbtfigures, says he
started learning Swedish in case he had to flee. Just as govern-
ments in Poland and Hungary have trampled over judicial inde-
pendence and free media, so too have they cracked down on gay
rights. Gay people in general are another victim of the eu’s inabili-
ty to ensure that countries maintain the standards that allowed
them into the club in the first place.
Since family law is mainly up to member states, there is little
the eucan do if a member state wants to stop a lesbian marrying or
a gay couple adopting. Where Brussels can muscle in is when the
right to free movement collides with bigoted domestic law. What
happens if a gay couple and their child move to a country where
such relationships are not recognised? The European Commission
wants to smooth out these bumps, ensuring that the link between
children and their gay parents is not severed if they move to a
country where gay adoption is banned. While few are affected di-
rectly, such a move has potent symbolic power. Definitions of on-
line hate speech will be widened to include homophobic abuse,
too. Towns that introduced lgbt-free zones in Poland had eu
funds cut. But the main thing the eucan offer is a pulpit, hammer-
ing those leaders who refuse to treat citizens equally.Peek behind the curtain
Such banging of the drum for gay rights by Brussels does come
with a risk. It is a fight both sides want to have. Normally, populists
rely on caricatures when taking aim at Brussels. In this case there
is less need. Populist politicians will claim that the euis doing all it
can to force countries to treat gay people better. euofficials will
happily plead guilty. A common complaint is that eastern Europe
is expected to go through decades of social change in the space of a
few years. (Denmark legalised gay sex in 1933, but it took nearly
eight decades before gay people could marry.) Change can happen
quickly, though. Ireland enjoyed a social revolution in less than a
generation, and Malta passed a slew of legislation that helped it be-
come the most gay-friendly country in the euin just a few years.
There are few complaints about the pace of transformation in cen-
tral and eastern Europe when it comes to living standards.
With the eucowering beneath a second wave of covid-19 cases
and in the middle of its biggest-ever recession, a fight over gay
rights could easily fall down the pecking order. It should not. The
euhas made much of promoting “European values”. Usually, these
tend to mean a respect for the rule of law, which is hardly inherent-
ly European. When it comes to gay rights, however, Europe has
genuinely been a pioneer. Until a gay person in Vilnius or Buda-
pest has the same rights as one in Dublin or Madrid, European val-
ues are no such thing at all. 7Charlemagne The rainbow curtain
For gay people, Europe is still a divided continent