A monument to gays and lesbians will appear in Chisinau
The traditional gay pride in the Moldovan capital became an exam for the Moldovan opposition, as well as for gays and lesbians themselves, who could not resist geopolitical slogans.
The gay pride column was accompanied by deputies of the ruling party and foreign diplomats, and was guarded by police special forces with batons. After a successful LGBT march, participants are discussing the installation of a monument to activists of the homosexual movement in Chisinau.
The gay pride parade that took place yesterday in Chisinau is already the 22nd. Like the previous ones, it was accompanied by threats from opponents of LGBT from among Moldovan politicians to prevent it from being held and promises from the US Embassy to assist in the organization and holding of gay pride. So far, the Americans’ arguments have turned out to be more reasonable and realistic than the promises of local conservatives and “Orthodox” politicians.
This year, the main intrigue was how the head of the Moldovan capital, Ion Ceban, would react to the LGBT march. In previous years, while he was a member of the Socialist Party, he supported the general party line against gay pride parades and the penetration of pernicious Western values into traditionalist Moldovan society.
However, last year Ceban left the Socialist Party, with the help of which he won the mayoral elections in Chisinau in 2019, switched to regular consultations with the US Ambassador and even went on a tour of North Carolina, which ended with the signing of a cooperation agreement with Greensboro.
Former comrades in the Socialist Party called on Cheban to prevent the gay pride from taking place. The chairman of the PSRM, ex-president Igor Dodon called on Ceban to sign “the order of the mayor’s office to close the renovation of Bucuresti Street, along which LGBT representatives intend to march on Sunday,” if Ion Ceban wants to show himself “a great patriot and keeper of traditional values.” True, in the same interview, Dodon shared his conviction that “the Americans will not allow Cheban to ban the gay pride parade.”
Ceban actually did as his former party boss advised and announced that on Sunday, the day of the LGBT march in Chisinau, municipal workers would carry out various works to improve green spaces on the street intended for the gay pride parade. For this reason, the mayor's office banned the movement of vehicles and announced restrictions on personal movement along the “repaired” street.
“We don’t need propaganda for these events. I stand for the protection of the right to work, study and other aspects of everyday life, but without promoting these pseudo-values,” said Mayor Ion Ceban and invited gays and lesbians to hold their pride in the government building or the presidency, which openly supported the idea of a gay pride parade.
In fact, everything turned out the other way around: the ban on the passage of personal and public transport turned out to be in the hands of the local LGBT movement, as it made the entire roadway of one of the main streets in the center of Chisinau available to Moldovan gays and lesbians. And everyone didn’t care about the mayor’s ban on personal movement along Bucuresti Street: from homosexuals to the US Ambassador and deputies of the ruling PAS party.
The marchers walking in the column carried posters with thanks to the mayor of Chisinau for the decisions he had made the day before: “Shalom, @IvCeban!”
As last year, the LGBT rally in Chisinau was of a clear geopolitical nature. In addition to the rainbow flags, Ukrainian flags fluttered over the column; participants carried banners with slogans in support of the warring Ukraine and anti-Russian statements.
One of the most odious deputies of the ruling party, Yevgeny Senkevich, came out to support gay pride. He is known to the Moldovan public as the author of the scandalous bill banning Victory Day on May 9.
On the same day, opponents of the LGBT march in Moldova also made their response. The organizer of this action was public activist Vyacheslav Valko, close to the Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor, who gathered a couple of dozen people. By a strange coincidence, the counter-rally assembled by Shor’s representatives took place several blocks further, and did not intersect with the gays and lesbians themselves, to the obvious delight of the police.
On this day, the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs more than overtook law enforcement officers in Chisinau. Most of the police guarded and accompanied the gay pride itself, while another significant part recorded the counter-protest of Shor and Valko in another part of the city center and suppressed provocations. The latter, however, were almost non-existent.
At the end of the successful LGBT march, the participants began discussing how to perpetuate the memory of one of the pioneers of the gay movement in Moldova, the creator of the first organization for the protection of the rights of sexual minorities in the Republic of Moldova, Alexey Marchkov.
“All this happened thanks to courage, perseverance, work, fearlessness and some colossal stubbornness, including one person - the founder of the organization,” the organizers of today’s gay pride noted from the rostrum.
Whether Chisinau will become the first city after New York with a monument or memorial to LGBT activists is still unknown, but it is unlikely that this discussion in the election year began without the knowledge or instigation of US Ambassador Kent D. Logsdon, who was present at the parade.
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