Jānis Šmits , former chairman of Parliamentary Commission on Human Rights calls for ban on Baltic Pride March
An open letter to the president, Cabinet of Ministers and Parliament of Latvia, the mayor of Rīga and the national Ombudsman (published today on diena.lv news portal)
www.diena.lv, 7 May 2009
Show Me Who You’re Serving? Ban the March on March 16
The Rev Jānis Šmits
Former chairman, Parliamentary Commission on Human Rights
An open letter to the president, Cabinet of Ministers and Parliament of Latvia, the mayor of Rīga and the national Ombudsman
As a citizen of Latvia and a Christian, I cannot remain apathetic, and I am calling on you to ban attempts in the public arena to humiliate the nation’s honour and respect. Keep people from making provocative statements against the people of the Republic of Latvia – statements which painfully offend their religious belief, morality and human rights that are guaranteed in our country by international human rights documents, the Constitution of Latvia and other acts that are in force.
For the fifth year in a row, a tiny group of foreign-financed and amoral people who falsely call themselves a minority are joining with their lobbies in an attempt to force their unnatural lifestyle onto the whole nation. Their damaging ideology directly or indirectly offends anyone who opposes their acceptance. They split up Latvia’s society and humiliate the majority which holds on to traditional moral and ethic norms and the definition of families. This year the lesbian Freimane is no longer shy, and she is openly boasting of her plan – “to create an environment in which it is nice for all people to live and work, not just those who correspond to some narrowly defined norm.”
How hostile does one have to be against the Latvian state and nation? How limited or shameless must one be to degrade the majority of society by saying that “only they” have “narrowly defined norms.” Can the norms which homosexuals have “broadly defined” and that have been respected only for a few decades in individual Western countries even be compared? The “norms” that have been collected over the centuries and are honoured as eternal values are recognised by “only those” (i.e., the people of Latvia) as the Bible and the Latvian folk songs which are still the historical foundation for our country’s culture and for the ethics among human relationships. How refined does long-hidden hatred and open cynicism have to be in order to describe the majority of a society that has lived and survived for centuries because of the Christian teachings and the life knowledge of Latvians?
Of course, Sections 100 and 103 of the Constitution guarantee everyone’s right to freedom of speech, which includes the right freely to obtain, maintain and disseminate information and views, as well as the state-guaranteed protection of peaceful meetings, marches and demonstrations which have been announced in advance. I would also like to remind you, however, that Section 110 of the Constitution is equally concrete in guaranteeing the state’s protection and support for marriage, families, and the rights of parents and children, while Section 116 states that rights that are identified in Sections 100 and 103 of the Constitution can be limited as provided for by the law, in order to protect the rights of others, the democratic system of the country, public safety, welfare and morality.
I fully respect the right of each individual to choose a lifestyle (but not the idea that it should oppress the freedom of the majority of society to reject the public popularisation of the special lifestyle of a few individuals), but it is the duty of those who hold power in national and local government to be concerned about how to protect the human rights, religious beliefs and morality of the majority of society at the level that is provided for by law.
I demand that you ban the march on May 16, which has the provocative goal of propagandising a lifestyle that is not in line with the Constitution or the norms of Section 3.2 of the law on meetings, marches and demonstrations. That law allows you to ban demonstrations which threaten public health and morality, as well as the rights and freedoms of other people.
Those who defend the ideology of homosexuals mostly come from Western countries where Latvians were emigrants, and that means that Latvia is not the motherland of many of the leaders of this movement. I ask you to respect what is said in Section 2 of the Constitution – that sovereign power in Latvia rests with the Latvian people.” Prohibit the statements which scorn the people and events which are based on these statements and attitudes. The voters of Latvia and their elected representatives, whose wages are paid by the taxpayers, are obliged first and foremost to protect the human rights of the majority which elected them, not the interests of emissaries who have propagandised their ideas for a comparatively short period of time in Latvia – ideas that are alien to us.
You can make public statements to show who you are really serving!
God bless Latvia!
