Prague/Brno - One of the goals of the first ever Queer Parade on Czech soil, which celebrated the local gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community and brought hundreds of people to the streets of Brno last Saturday, was to press for more parental rights of same-sex couples in the Czech Republic.
That said, people who only learned about it from the news, could be forgiven for believing that the event´s goal was not to highlight the sexual minorities and their demands, but instead showcase their sworn enemies from the neo-Nazi camp who were gladly posing for the cameras with their banners that read „No to adoptions by homosexual couples" or "I defend the hetero family".
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The organizers of the Rainbow Wave, as the week-long series of GLBT-themed shows and events in the Czech Republic´s second largest city was called, were not surprised though. They have had enough time to get used to this. And they seem to concentrate on the brighter side of things.
"We certainly did not expect to see our agenda in the evening news. Nevertheless, we do believe that the parade was a success. We had people coming to thank us at the evening party in Fléda club and you could tell they were glad we have managed to put the issues that are importat to the GLBT community out in the open," said Jolana Navrátilová of Holky v Brně "informal group", which was one of the main organizers of the Queer Parade.
IN PICTURES: First Czech Queer Parade in Brno
Protecting the children
As she pointed out, the challenges to gay and lesbian parenting were a subject of at least one public debate organized on the fringes of the Rainbow Wave earlier in the week. Among the main problems discussed were the openly discriminatory passages in the family law and the registered partnership law, which prevent gay partners from adopting children.
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It is all the more disconcerting given the fact that there are many (hundreds, if not thousands) children already growing up in gay families, all perfectly legally - for example, children of one of the partners from a previous relationship or assisted reproduction. But these kids are also much more vulnerable when the partners split up.
Infobox
- According to the present laws in the Czech Republic, only a married couple (i.e. husband and wife) can adopt a child jointly from a children´s home - as regulated by the Family Law.
- Individually, any citizen of the Czech Republic regardless of his or her sexual orientation can adopt a child from a children home. He or she loses that right, however, when entering a registered partnership. The law on the civil union of same sex couples explicitely states that „existing partnership prevents ether of the partners from becoming an adoptive parent".
- Adopting the partner´s child is another type of adoption. On this, the Law on registered partnership, says: „If one of the partners raises a child and both partners ochabit, the other partner takes part in the child´s upbringing too; obligations concerning the protection of upbringing and development of the child relate to the partner too". Thus, non-biological parent is obliged to take part in the upbringing, but does not have the right to ask for recognition of his parenting rights towards the child he or she is raising.
Source: Stejná rodina
Since the biological parent in the gay couple is not obliged by law to allow his or her ex to see the child, the bond which always develops between the child and the person who helps bring him up, can be severed. Even worse is when the biological parent dies and the child is faced with the risk of being forcibly taken away by the state social care, because the partner of the deceased is not entitled to have legal guardianship.
"The present legal vacuum is very dangerous for the kids growing up in gay families, which is why we consider it our number one priority to propogating the possibility to adopt a child of one´s partner," said Anna Garčicová of Stejná rodina (Same family) civic association, which also helped with the Queer Parade.
"We are concerned with the protection of the children on this one and the gay and lesbian rights take a back seat here," she added, speaking to Aktuálně.cz.
Lone cabinet ally
Although the movement for equal rights for gay and lesbian families has an important ally in the minister for human rights and ethnic minorities Džamila Stehlíková, under whose auspices the Saturday´s march was held, it is necessary to find wider political support if the critical changes to the laws are to be passed.
"We feel that the minister is rather isolated in the cabinet on this issue, but we do plan to lobby the deputies in the parliament. First steps have already been taken," Anna Garčicová said.
One to surely keep an eye on the future developments in the campaign to have the discriminatory passages removed from the laws concerned, is Jindřich Vačkář, who, together with his French partner, raises two adopted sons.
They live in California where the authorities do not mount any obstacles to homosexual couples adopting children. But they do come to the Czech Republic fairly often to see relatives and they would not mind to have their marriage from Canada legalized here too.
"But we are definitely not going to do this until the Czech law makes same sex couples truly equal to their heterosexual counterparts. So far, it rather discriminates against them," says the 33-year old "tata" as the sons Etian and Viktor call him, while his husband Franck, who grew up in France, is "papa" to them.
Parents wanted: Gays welcome
The young family from San Francisco showed up in full force for the history-making Queer Parade in Brno. But when the group of rabble-rousing homophobes barged in, verbally and physically attacking people in front of their terrified and tearful kids, they decided to go spend the afternoon somewhere else.
"We do not understand the hatred these neo-Nazis feel. I mean, there is nothing to be understood about it. However, we do understand the restraint on the part of the society towards adoptions by homosexual couples - people are worried about the upbringing of children and choose to err on the side of cautiousness," says Jindra, as his friends call him.
"But we are convinced it is only a matter of time before they realize that gays and lesbians can be just as good - or just as bad - parents as heterosexuals," he adds.
He confides it was hard for him after his coming out to reconcile with the idea of not being able to have kids, but then he came across a book in which a gay journalist describes his and his partner´s journey to adopting a child.
"I began reading everything I could about the issue, looking preferably for the studies that were not written in a biased way by one or the other side of the argument and I came to believe the prejudices held against the gay parents were as baseless as all of the other prejudices," continues Jindřich Vačkář.
"In the end, we decided with my husband to adopt special needs kids, who were being overlooked by everybody else. Most of the US states allow gay adoptions, but San Francisco goes an extra mile," he says and goes on to explain:
"There is generally a lot of children in the system for whom it is very hard to find parents and so the city hall helped finance a big media campaign targeting gay couples in which it directly encouraged them to adopt," says the Czech father of American baby brothers in an interview for Aktuálně.cz.
Read also: Discrimination of Czech single male parents to go on
