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Lithuania
No rainbow busses
The planned action to have rainbow trolleybuses for the International Day Against Homophobia in Vilnius and Kaunas has been stopped
For the Rainbow Days 2007the Lithuanian Gay League had planned a social advertisement campaign to promote respect for homosexual rights. Now the bus drivers started to refuse to drive busses with such posters. Soon afterwards employees of the Imbela advertising company stripped from the trolleybus the posters “A gay man can serve in the police force” “A lesbian woman can work as a teacher” and “Homosexual employees have a right be open and safe”.
The official answer why the busses did not leave the garage is that there had been a technical breakdown, though no official report about such a breakdown has been received. The designing, making, pasting and removing the gay posters cost 3.5 thousand Litas (1000 Euros) – paid with funds of the European Union.
The statement of the municipality is that “(…) the municipality of Vilnius informs that it disapproves advertisement of this nature. We tolerate people of any kind of sexual orientation, nevertheless with priority for traditional family and seeking to promote the family values, we disapprove the public display of homosexualist’s ideas in the city of Vilnius”, - commented the mayor of Vilnius Juozas Imbrasas.
The posters were prepared on the basis of public opinion polls. The results of these polls indicated that more than half of Lithuanian residents think that gays should not be allowed to serve as policemen and lesbians should not be allowed to work as teachers.
