Right-wing extremists try to break up Czech 'gay parade'

[struggle4progress]

PRAGUE (AFP) — Czech police were forced to intervene after right-wing extremists attempted to disrupt a "gay parade" in the country's second city, Brno, on Saturday, leading to 15 arrests, police said.

Several dozen black-clad extremists tried to break up a planned two-hour march through the city centre by gays and lesbians. The right-wingers threw eggs and fireworks into the midst of the marchers as they gathered in a central city square, local media reported.

Fifteen people were detained by police and two charged with breaching the peace, police spokeswoman Andrea Prochazkova told AFP.

Around 200 police in riot gear gathered at the start of the march to protect some 500 participants. Following the initial clash, organisers decided to press on with the parade but over a shorter route than initially planned ...

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hTUECXnFqRtGpG2CvLypIjIwSqqg

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. Did you look at the pic of that right wing protester?

Please excuse me if this sounds improper to say but he looks like a real closet case. Or is it my eyes?

[struggle4progress]

2. Nobody could become a rightwing thug without having some serious psychological issues

No doubt some are conflicted self-haters. I have no idea what deep problems that particular chap has

[Igel]

4. He had a cop's arm around his neck and upper chest, pulling him back.

Hardly his best moment, to be sure.

[Meeker Morgan]

3. Here's another

Bulgarian extremists attack gay parade with rocks (AP)
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080628/D91JA0O80.html


Notice how the former "East Bloc" seems to be the most regressive about gays.

My take is that Communism kept them from social progress by clamping down on everything.

[LeftyMom]

5. When religious proselytizing was allowed again, the fundies showed up first.

And a generation that was raised on authoritarianism went from lives led by top-down gov't to lives led by top-down religion with relative ease. Which is how they wound up with crazy dominionist churches, holiness churches (who believe every possible human ill results from demons) and "Russian Baptists" (who aren't actually Baptist) controlling huge swaths of the population in former Soviet Bloc countries, notably disaffected young people. While there are huge differences in their (all very conservative) theology, for example the holiness churches are non-trinitarian, they're all virulently homophobic.

Unfortunately, many of them later moved to the US and became my nutjob coworkers and neighbors. Yay me.

[Meeker Morgan]

6. Before very recent times, being anti-gay was not specifically associated with fundies.

It was "normal". Science and medicine weren't on our side either.

It's not like Communist regimes were pro-gay, and fundies suddenly turned folks against us after they fell.

Communism prevented the social progress that took place in the West.