Europe's first openly gay president. Edgars Rinkēvičs wins the election in LGBT-unfriendly country
Anna Rusak,01.06.2023 12:00We have the first openly homosexual president in Europe. Edgars Rinkēvičs, who has been an outed gay man for years, has become the president of Latvia. He will govern in a country that is not particularly a paradise for LGBTQ+ people.
How many prominent politicians in Europe have decided to come out officially? Still not too many. The Europeans have not heard of any president declaring that they belong to the LGBTQ+ community so far.
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Everything changed on 31 May, due to the presidential elections in Latvia. On Wednesday the country's parliament elected Edgars Rinkēvičs for president. He has long been an important politician who has openly admitted he is gay.
Europe's first gay president
Certainly, there are gay prime ministers, just to mention the Prime Minister of Ireland Leo Varadkar, the Prime Minister of Serbia Ana Brnabić or the Prime Minister of Luxembourg Xavier Bettel. Now it's time for Europe's first homosexual president.
Edgars Rinkēvičs, who served as the country's foreign minister, was elected president on 31 May. In the 100-seat Latvian Parliament, he received the votes of 52 MPs.
Rinkēvičsa thus became the first homosexual president in Europe. In his statement on Twitter, we can read that he is honoured to be elected and wants to serve the people of Latvia well. He also announced that he would maintain the country's western political course and continue to support Ukraine.
Europe's first gay president on coming out
Rinkēvičs came out in November 2014. He did so via Twitter, publishing a post in which he wrote: "I proudly announce I am gay... Good luck all of you...". In a subsequent tweet signed #Proudtobegay, he spoke about the need to improve the rights of LGBTQ+ people in Latvia.
"I contemplated all the positive and negative consequences that may arise due to my decision, and decided that it is better to be honest and to speak frankly, as well as to urge a discussion about these matters, including registration of partnerships, which is a complicated topic," PinkNews quote Rinkēvičs.
Latvia's new gay president has a lot of work to do in his country as far as the LGBTQ+ rights are concerned. Latvia is ranked 37th in the ILGA-Europe 2023 ranking. It is obviously ahead of Poland, but the rights of the rainbow community are still not adequately respected there.
Last year in Latvia the law allowing same-sex couples to enter into civil unions was passed. However, the country still does not recognise LGBTQ+ marriages, so the rights of the rainbow community continue to be restricted. Same sex couples still are not allowed to adopt children for instance.
Source: PinkNews
