Q-Seattle Events: Tacky Tourist Clubs

UK Gay News is a website that has -- along with its wonderfully inclusive daily summery of gay-related news stories -- done more than any other to recount the frightening flowering of often-violent homophobia that has accompanied the re-emergence of religious institutions in the countries of the former Soviet bloc.

This week, their focus turned slightly to the west as Eastern European homophobes prepare to meet with some of their American fellow-travelers in Lynnwood.

UK Gay News combines a summary of the week's developments here with one of those lessons in Latvian politics that has become so oddly relevant in the Pacific Northwest.

The Russian-language preacher, Alexey Ledyaev, who is scheduled to be here for the weekend conference, runs his radio ministry -- called New Generation Church -- from Latvia's capital city Riga. Ledyaev is closely allied with a right-wing party that is part of a coalition that controls the government there.

While the quasi-governmental body that runs Lynnwood's convention center still insists that booking a radical hate group at the facility was the proper thing to do, European officials haven't been so willing to tolerate the intolerance that characterizes the group that will be here.

According to the UK Gay News story, Euro human rights officials recently refused invite one of Ledyaev's political cronies to a meeting even though the Latvian politician -- Janis Smits -- holds the official ministry position that makes him responsible for human rights issues in the country.

This week, Andreas Gross, rapporteur of the Judicial and Human Rights Committee of the Council of Europe?s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), was in Latvia and invited the Latvian Parliamentary Social Affairs and Human Rights Committee to lunch.

Well, not quite all of the committee. Excluded was chairperson Janis Smits, whose homophobic outbursts are legendary. ...

Janis Smits is no stranger to "anti-gay" demonstrations in Latvia. While he is not known to have been seen wearing one of the "No Pederasts" t-shirts, he has been seen ? even photographed ? with placards containing the "No Pederasts" symbol at anti-gay pride rallies.

The Council of Europe group that's more familiar with what Ledyaev, Smits, and their cohorts are doing in Europe judged Smits unworthy of contributing to a discussion about human rights.

The folks in Lynnwood might have been -- as some of them are now claiming -- confused about the group's name and about its purpose, but Hutcherson's involvement with the conference should have allowed them to figure it all out if only they'd done a bit of research.

Labels: bigotry, events, ken hutcherson, latvia, scott lively, state:WA, watchmen