Baltics lagging on LGBT rights as Pride Month starts across Europe

Baltics lagging on LGBT rights as Pride Month starts across Europe

While many countries in the European Union (EU) and elsewhere in the world have provided legal registration of same-sex relationships and sometimes even marriage, the Baltic countries, except for Estonia’s partnership law, still lag behind even as many European countries celebrate LGBT Pride month in June.

Latvia’s parliament, the Saeima, for the second time in a week on June 2 blocked a gender-neutral civil union law with an odd alliance of a government coalition member, the National Alliance joining with opposition parties to prevent a quorum on the final vote on the draft law.

The latest variant of a civil partnership law (an idea first proposed in 1997) was introduced by the Minister of Justice Jānis Bordāns and largely backed by his New Conservative Party.

Bordāns said a 2020 Constitutional Court ruling recognizing parental leave rights for the same-sex partner of a woman who gave birth had also created a positive duty for the state to grant legal protection to same-sex families, a viewpoint also backed by Latvia’s President Egils Levits, a former judge of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Opponents of the gender-neutral civil union law, including the self-proclaimed social democratic opposition Harmony party simply refused to vote on the final reading of the proposed measure, leaving the 100-member without a 50…