LGBT Activism and the Making of Europe

A Rainbow Europe?

Phillip Ayoub, David Paternotte

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137391759
• eBook ISBN: 9781137391766
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book explores the alleged uniqueness of the European experience, and investigates its ties to a long history of LGBT and queer movements in the region. These movements, the book argues, were inspired by specific ideas about Europe, which they sought to realize on the ground through activism.

1

Introduction

Phillip M. Ayoub and David Paternotte

Of course, this means the expansion of the sphere of the so-called gay culture, which has now turned into the official policy of the EU.

Alexei Pushkov, Chairman of the Russian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, December 2013¹

Alexei Pushkov’s remarks were made in the winter of 2013, in the context of escalating tensions between Russia and the European Union (EU), when thousands of Ukrainians lined the streets of Kiev to protest against their government’s intensifying relationship with Russia, which threatened Ukraine’s deeper relations with the EU. As both Ukrainian society and state authorities weighed the tradeoffs of orienting themselves to “the East” or to “the West,” Pushkov’s warning to Ukrainians reflects the prominent role that lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) rights have come to play in geopolitical struggles across the region. His cautionary remarks harp on the idea that an alignment with Europe not only would result in forgoing decisive Russian economic support for Ukraine, but would also affect Ukrainian identity: national values and morals were at stake in the face of a rainbow-tinged European threat.

Connecting LGBT rights to the idea of Europe has become a recurring theme in international politics; such rights become a contentious element of belonging to Europe and a rhetorical vehicle used by those offering an alternative cultural paradigm to the EU. The global relevance of this association by those who oppose LGBT rights, and the various reactions provoked by its policies, only strengthens the bonds that tie this association and reinforce its perceived reality. Indeed, current debates in Russia and Ukraine, as well as worldwide reactions to the anti-gay propaganda law of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, demonstrate that LGBT rights increasingly belong at the core of European values in the imagination of many actors.

Putin’s position is, for example, partly inspired by a nationalistic project that aims to return Russia to the world stage. As he outlined in his 2013 State of the Federation speech, Russia is prepared to be the leader of a new political and cultural model that offers an alternative to both the EU and “the West.”² One of the model’s defining features is the promotion of traditional values and the defense of “authentic” national cultures, through the rejection of democratic standards imposed from abroad:

We know that there are more and more people in the world who support our position on defending traditional values that have made up the spiritual and moral foundation of civilization in every nation for thousands of years: the values of traditional families, real human life, including religious life, not just material existence but also spirituality, the values of humanism and global diversity. (Putin 2013)

As Putin outlines his alternative project, LGBT rights become a powerful symbol of the Europe he seeks to oppose.

At the same time, the reactions of institutional and civil society to Putin’s policies, both in Russia and in Ukraine, have contributed to a further isolation of Russia from Europe, and subsequently also to an increasingly strengthened value association between Europe and LGBT rights. This was clearly illustrated by the European Parliament’s resolution on the joint EU–Russia Summit, adopted in February 2013, which voiced serious concerns over the status of LGBT rights in Russia.³ Such reactions often confirm the imagined “Europeanness” of LGBT rights, which have been used in geopolitical contests at the margins of the continent.

These comments made by Pushkov and Putin refer to a “special relationship” between LGBT rights and a certain idea of Europe, in which “Europe” as a concept extends beyond strict institutional categories. Indeed, such an association between Europe and LGBT rights is not new in the scholarly literature (e.g. Kollman 2009; Stychin 2001; Kuhar 2011; Paternotte 2011; Paternotte and Kollman 2013; Ayoub 2013b; Wilson 2013), tracking occurrences of this association in countries as geographically and politically varied as Romania (Carstocea 2006), Poland (Chetaille 2011), and Hungary (Rédai 2012). Furthermore, this phenomenon is not restricted to Europe. As exemplified by recent scholarship on debates surrounding LGBT rights in Africa (e.g. Currier 2012), the relationship is also used as a rhetorical tool in other parts of the world, where Europe is often conflated with the United States (US) or “the West.” With actors at both ends of the ideological and political spectrum increasingly repeating this mantra, the idea that Europe and LGBT rights are linked has taken on a role of its own, with important implications for the political sociology of the region.

This book is an attempt to understand better the emergence and the historical development of the “special relationship” that unites issues of sexuality and Europe. By looking at its various dimensions, we hope to critically examine how this relationship has been constructed and how it has become, especially in rhetoric and the imagination, a reality. We aim to explain the origins and the development of this relationship, addressing the paradox that, while being marginal within EU policies, LGBT rights have become a powerful symbol of Europe, featuring centrally in debates ranging from foreign relations to economic trade. We thus hope to shed light on the reasons why contemporary discourses, such as those surrounding the crisis in Ukraine, can refer to LGBT rights as a meaningful symbol with which to oppose the idea of Europe.

In doing so, this book explores the alleged uniqueness of the European experience, and investigates its ties to a relatively long and established history of LGBT and queer (LGBTQ) movements in the region. As we demonstrate, the earliest notions of the idea that Europe has a special relationship to LGBT rights first appeared in activists’ discourses, long before it was adopted and championed by European and national institutions. We argue that LGBT movements were inspired by specific ideas about Europe – democratic values and a responsibility toward human rights – and sought to realize them on the ground through activism, often crossing borders to foster a wider movement. While LGBT issues are linked to Europe’s normative structures from above, by using “Europe” as an argument for demanding LGBT recognition from their states and societies, the activists on the ground subsequently, and indirectly, recreate the idea that Europe is united around the LGBT issue. In turn, the link between being European and accepting LGBT people becomes established, and the understanding of LGBT rights as a European value is further cemented, paradoxically also allowing others to use it as a strategic argument against the idea of a united Europe itself.

In the Introduction to this volume, we first discuss the idea of Europe and highlight how it relates to LGBT rights. Second, we give a brief overview of the history of LGBT movements in the region. Third, we introduce the historical role of European institutions in adopting policies on the issue. Fourth, we explore the problematic construction of European “others” – those at the disciplined margins – who are left out of the process as Europe starts to wave its rainbow colors. Finally, we close the chapter by outlining the content of this book according to the three thematic areas we address: (1) meaning-making, how LGBT activists define “Europe” in the LGBT movement; (2) practice, how LGBTQ movements deploy the “idea of Europe” on the ground; and (3) identity, the ways in which this activism strengthens the European identification of regional LGBT movements.

LGBT rights and the making of Europe

The European project

Questions of what it means to be European have perplexed observers – whether scholars or not – for centuries. The broad sweep of a concept that has no clear boundaries in terms of geography and culture has left open the questions of “what is Europe” and “who is European.” While these questions have gone unanswered, there has always been a plurality of interpretations of the ideas that bind Europe together. From a revolution in France, to the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community, to discussions of “East” and “West,” “Europe” as a multifaceted idea is always present. It helps shape the political understandings of a plethora of issues and the values that become associated with being “European.” In this volume, we do not attempt to answer these questions, but we do note an association with the “idea of Europe” and LGBT rights in contemporary politics, an association we wish to chart and explain.

While the “idea of Europe” has been deployed “by anarchists, nationalists, and romantic poets as a motto for everything from socialism to pan-Slavism” (Case 2009: 116), Deutsch’s (1969) theories considered the project of European identity building to be pronounced among groups that had sustained positive interactions and solidarity that functioned across borders. If a European identity were to emerge, then such groups would need “to come to a positive sense of solidarity based on the idea that they were all members of an overarching group” (Fligstein 2009: 136). This is true of European LGBT politics, where the idea of Europe re-forms and re-presents itself in multiple dimensions, and in the reverse process in which LGBT politics have become associated with European politics. When the organizers of LGBT marches wave EU flags and use European slogans to define their claims (Ayoub 2013a: 299–300), they establish this relationship, giving “Europe” symbolic meaning, beyond the common institutional understanding of what Europe is.

Checkel and Katzenstein carefully distinguish between Europe as a political project, driven by purposeful political elites and their choices, and as a socio-political process, driven by “social mediation and exchange” (2009: 3). This latter process is a far more fluid conception of Europe, beyond institutions and elites in Brussels and Strasbourg (Hooghe 2005), which relies on deliberation, social networking, and political bargaining at subnational, national, supranational, and transnational levels. Thinking of both top-down and bottom-up approaches to Europe more reasonably captures the processes of European identity- and value-making that shape the spaces in which minority groups can pursue their specific European identity projects. These spaces are important for minority claims making, because supranational institutions do indeed allow for similar issues to become politicized in multiple countries in the European public sphere (Risse 2010). While the idea of Europe is appropriated in different ways across national contexts, 50 years of European integration have led both to an emotional attachment to Europe, as well as to a secondary identity, which Europeans attach to the broader European idea (ibid.).⁴

Beyond the institutions and economics commonly theorized in contemporary studies on politics and markets, Europe holds normative content – and some argue “soft power” – in terms of the ideational and symbolic impact it exercises over its own international identity (Manners 2002: 238). According to this understanding, the idea of Europe has an “ability to shape conceptions of ‘normal’ in international relations” through a set of values (239), covering a broad range of core issues from environmentalism to inalienable human rights. Scholars have criticized a Habermassian understanding of core European values (Castiglione 2009: 45), encompassing a rich sense of Europeanness and overestimated value convergence, but most agree that Europe has been made and remade over the centuries in the image of different values. While there is no mass consensus around a European value-based identity (Checkel and Katzenstein 2009), we do recognize such a link between LGBT rights and European values in international politics.

The idea of Europe and LGBT rights

In his abdication speech in July 2013, Albert II, former king of Belgium, discussed the unique contributions that the European project offers. Drawing on the memory of the Second World War (WWII), he emphasized that Europe’s importance and relevance depended on it protecting its fundamental values:

In our world, the European project is more necessary than ever. In numerous domains, challenges can only be met at European level and it is at this level that some values can be best defended. I think of the wealth of diversity, democratic pluralism, tolerance, solidarity and the protection of those that are weak.⁵

The same values are put forward when talking about the European contribution to LGBT rights. For instance, in March 2013, the Belgian, French, and Italian ministers of equal opportunities, Joëlle Milquet, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem and Elsa Fornero respectively, published a statement in leading European newspapers to announce a European LG...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction
• Part I  Meanings of Europe
• Part II  Practicing Europe in LGBTQ Activism
• Part III  Becoming European
• Index