N-VA MEPs won’t budge an inch on LGBTI rights

“Our party has always played a pioneering role as far as the rights of the LGBTI community are concerned, and we will continue to do so.” The N-VA group in the European Parliament is lending its full support to a resolution that makes the rights of the LGBTI community in the EU a fundamental point. At the same time, the resolution condemns increasing public discrimination and hate speech against the differently-oriented. “Let it be clear: in the field of equal rights for the LGBTI community, we are not budging an inch,” say N-VA MEPs Geert Bourgeois, Assita Kanko and Johan Van Overtveldt.

LGBTI-free zones

The resolution is the cornerstone of a debate about public discrimination and hate-mongering against LGBTI people. MEPs are expressing their concern about the so-called “LGBTI-free zones” in Poland. Dozens of municipalities and provinces in the south-eastern part of the country have declared themselves “LGBTI-ideology-free”. While those resolutions have no legal standing and are nothing but symbolic, they do contribute to the stigmatisation and exclusion of LGBTI people.

Discrimination and hate speech

The resolution reiterates the concern about these LGBTI-free zones in Poland, but also increasing discrimination and hate speech in the EU against gay men, lesbians, transgenders and other people with a different sexual orientation. This is a concern that the N-VA group in the European Parliament shares. “We therefore voted clearly in favour of the amendment that strongly condemns the so-called LGBTI-free zones in Poland.”

N-VA a pioneer

When it comes to the rights of the LGBTI community, the N-VA has always been a pioneer. Already since its formation in 2001, the N-VA has consistently supported the fight for legal equality and the positive social acceptance of the LGBTI community. This support is expressed at local, Flemish, Belgian federal and European level alike: the N-VA rainbow encompasses the whole world.