“I don’t believe that we should spoil a few percent of society members by allowing them to propagandise their perversion,” Ārgalis told the LETA news agency. “Otherwise we’re going to have to afford the same opportunities to other, similar groups of sexual oddities – flashers, exhibitionists, glue-sniffers.”

The deputy mayor told LETA that as a representative of the older generation, he does not understand this “propaganda of perversion”, and that’s why he doesn’t support organising the Pride event in a public location.

It has already been reported that the Pride event is also not supported by several other members of the City Council, including deputy mayor Almers Ludviks (First Party of Latvia/Latvia’s Way). Last weekend he called on the relevant departments of the Rīga local government to ban the Pride event on the 11th November Shoreline and to decide instead to organise the march in some other, less public location.

Ludviks believes that the planned sexual minorities march is aimed at “creating a hullabaloo”, and if it is organised on the 11th November Shoreline, that would create a challenge against this location’s “deeply symbolic meaning, and it would create moral harm to the people of Rīga.”

The mayor of Rīga, Jānis Birks (For the Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK), explained to the LETA agency that the decision on whether to permit or ban a march is taken by the city’s executive director, who does so first of all on the basis of the law, and second of all on recommendations from security institutions about where they will be able to ensure public order. “As far as I know, there have been endless discussions about the location between organisers of the march and the security structures. This is a compromise,” said Birks.

“I don’t think that it would be better for the march to go along Vērmaņdārzs park, as the organisers had intended, because a children’s festival will be taking place there just at that time,” said Birks.

Deputy mayor Jānis Dinevičs (Latvian Social Democratic Workers Party) believes “that anyone can do what he wants in his bedroom. I do not plan to denounce or raise anyone, but I don’t want anyone to be pushy with views that seem unacceptable to me.”

“I am not a supporter of the Pride, but I can understand Grīnbergs, who has to find an appropriate solution. Given all of the circumstances, and with the approval of all of the relevant state institutions, one has been found,” stressed Dinevičs.

With respect to Ludviks’ request, Rīga city executive director Andris Grīnbergs told the LETA news agency that in reviewing applications for meetings, marches and protests, he “cannot base thinking on emotions, because there are norms in the law.”

“From this perspective, the local government has no reason to ban the planned event. The planned march on the 11th November Shoreline, moreover, has to be seen as a compromise between the organisers of the event, the local government, and the security structures with which the place and route of the event have been agreed,” said Grīnbergs.