Homophobic law comes into effect

The country's notorious law on the protection of minors came into effect this week, though modified to omit any overt references to the ban on homosexuality in the public domain.

The law drew massive international attention when it was first passed in the Seimas last year because it equated the subject of homosexuality with viewing mutilated bodies and other disturbing images thought to harm children.

Though the Lithuanian government bowed to international pressure, particularly from Brussels where the European parliament passed a resolution condemning the law, and took out the obvious references to homosexuality, it still remains homophobic because it outlaws the promotion of "any concept of the family other than that set down in the constitution.” The constitution defines family as a traditional heterosexual union between a man and a woman.

"From now on, any of our public events could fall under that clause and be banned,” Vladimir Simonko, leader of the Lithuanian Gay League, told Agency France Presse.

Though president Dalia Grybauskaite wanted to veto the law, a power the president usually holds, she was unable to send it back to parliament because it was vetoed already by the former president just before he left office.

The president has only one opportunity to veto a law and send it back to the parliament for consideration, then must sign the new version if it passes again.

According to statistics from the European Union's statistics body Eurostat, Lithuania is not only the continent's most intolerant of otherness, including homosexuality, but it has the lowest amount of gays who have come out and told their friends and relatives about their sexuality. Some believe that the country's gay population have fled, while others believe that they simply choose to stay in the closet.