Sunday, July 4, 2010

Gay Pride rally attacked in Helsinki

The fairly short list of terrorist acts in Finland just got a new entry.

According to Helsingin Sanomat, a bunch of nutcases attacked the Gay Pride rally in Helsinki last Saturday. They threw flares or smoke bombs at the marchers, and proceeded to spray the column with tear gas and pepper spray while shouting abuse.

As of this writing, three people are under arrest, and some half a dozen others are being investigated. The perpetrators are from all over Finland, so I'm guessing this was planned online. I know we have racist web forums; are there dedicated homophobic ones as well?

Some thirty people were exposed to the gas, with the youngest being an eleven-month old baby whose parents were watching the rally. The police are investigating this as multiple assault, but with Finnish legislation and sentencing the way it is, it's almost certain none of them will go to prison or face any real repercussions.

There's no two ways about it: this is terrorism. Attacking people at a public rally like this is despicable, especially considering what the rally was for. The idea of someone having a sexuality different from yours is grounds for violence? That's appalling.

Finland is a bit weird when it comes to sexual diversity. On the one hand, we are, by and large, a fairly open-minded country about these things. On the other hand, the cult of masculinity is incredibly strong here. For comparison, Stockholm had a turnout of 50,000 people for their Pride rally. Helsinki? 5,000. And I do think there's a reason for that. It's worth remembering that gay sex was a crime in Finland until the 1970s. Blasphemy is still a crime.

There are some ugly political trends in Finland these days, and one of them just went off the deep end. It's disgusting that on the day of the attack, the chairman of the Finnish Christian party said that her party is "willing to fight" against gender-neutral marriage in Finland. I see some of her fellow ideologists did.

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