MP calls for gays to leave Lithuania
A Lithuanian MP notorious for his anti-gay views has said gays should be driven from the country, interrupting a press conference in the Parliament building.
Petras Grazulis, who proposed a 2010 law fining the promotion of homosexuality among minors in Lithuania, interrupted a press conference for the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia tomorrow, 15min.lt said.
Mr Grazulis disrupted the event, attended by LGBT rights advocates and ambassadors, asking: “How are homosexuals better than necrophiliacs or paedophiles?”
“I’m ashamed that the rotten West, coming from the European Union that is morally corrupted, propagates this to Lithuania and tells us how we should treat homosexuals. Gays should leave Lithuania, not dictate their terms to us.”
Vladimiras Simonko, of the Lithuanian Gay League, said Mr Grazulis had interrupted the press conference before.
He told 15min.lt: “The same thing happened in 2010, it happens in 2012, except that this time he does it among honourable guests, 11 ambassadors. I have no doubts that the circus will be repeated in 2013. This adds no credit to the Parliament. I’m ashamed to have such bigoted MPs.”
Complaining of “moral rottenness” being promoted in the Parliament, Mr Grazulis, an Order and Justice Party MP, continued: “It won’t be long before kleptomaniacs, drug addicts, necrophiliacs, or zoophiles start organizing their press conferences in the Parliament. There are many kinds of devildom – shall we give rights to them all? Could we have thought 10 years ago that things like that would be happening? In 10 years, they’ll be bringing goats to the Parliament.”
He said: “I support the position of the Church, there is no doubt about it. These people are indeed sick and perverted. They pose a threat to society because they molest children.”
The event in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius was organised by the Lithuania Gay League and social democratic MP Marija Aušrinė Pavilionienė. Representatives from the Dutch and American embassies and Amnesty International attended to hear about human rights issues affecting the country’s LGBT community.
