This gay politician just came out and thinks all LGBT party leaders should too
The head of the Green party in the Czech Republic has come out as gay.
After much speculation in the country’s newspapers, Matej Stropnický announced his sexuality in an interview with gay website nakluky.cz.
His party republished part of that interview on their own website yesterday, Prague Daily Monitor reports.
“The private life is simply only mine,” Stropnický said.
“However, the information itself should be public if a party leader is involved. I do not want to be a coward.”
Related: Czech version of National Geographic calls gay people ‘faggots’
He added that the electorate would respect “his fair play” ahead of the election to the Chamber of Deputies.
Stropnický claimed that his party was the only one in the Czech Republic to properly defend the rights of LGBT people.
“We see two things as being quite substantial: adoption of children and granting of widow’s/widower’s pensions,” he said.
“Actually, we want people living in same-sex couples to have simply the same rights as heterosexual couples.”
Matej Stropnický is the son of Martin Stropnický, who is currently the Czech Minister of Defence.
His party is predicted to fall short of the five per cent needed to be represented in the Chamber.
While same-sex sexual activity has been legal in the Czech Republic since 1962, when the country was part of what was then Czechoslovakia, same-sex marriage is still not legal there.
Support for same-sex marriage has crept up to just over half of the population.
In 2015, a court in the country made a landmark ruling in favour of same-sex adoption.
While there are no out politicians of note in the Czech Republic, in 2016 the British people elected a record number of LGBTQ people to Parliament.
