A celebration of gay pride in Riga, Latvia erupted in total chaos when homophobic fascists and anti-gay right wing extremists disrupted the parade, assaulted an openly gay pastor and surrounded a hotel trapping a dozen pride leaders for hours until being "rescued" by the government. (PageOneQ)

Reports from the Pride organizers indicate that police protection was nonexistant with little attempt to control the swelling crowds or protect the victims of the attacks.  As in Russia, the fascists were joined in their hateful violence by a multitude of religious people.  And as in Poland and Russia, the government banned the parade in open defiance of the human rights requirements of the European Union.

Eastern Europe is headed for a meltdown on gay civil rights.

In another story, the Gay WorldPride festival parade scheduled to be held in Jerusalem has been cancelled due to the looming all out war between Israel and Hezbollah.  The organizers had to cancel because there aren't enough soldiers available to protect the marchers. 

WorldPride proved to be the one thing in the universe capable of drawing together regional Jewish, Muslim and Christian flavored homo-bigots who insisted the parade be cancelled and threatened violence if it was not.  What a nice display of ecumenism!

Other WorldPride activities will go on as scheduled including a film festival and interfaith worship service.

These are the kind of stories that should make every queer in Pittsburgh rethink our attitudes about our own Pride Parade. While we worry about parking, sun screen and grabbing the swag, our brothers and sisters throughout the world are pelted with rocks and physically assaulted.  Our police officers protect us from crazy drivers and idiots who bring beer into the festival.  Eastern European police seem to protect the fascists and women using their Bibles to smack down homosexuals.  We are pursuing full civil rights while our counterparts in Nigeria struggle for the right to even exist. 

We must be on to something if we are drawing such wrath around the world from our avowed enemies.  And we here in Pittsburgh should take our existing civil liberties a bit more seriously rather than be lulled into a sense of complacency by the seeming peacefulness of our celebrations.  We owe that to queers in Russian, Poland, Nigeria, Israel and Latvia ... we owe it to ourselves. 

But, you say, PrideFest isn't until June.  True, but the most important election of 2006 and absolutely the biggest electoral battle for gay civil rights takes place right here in Pennsylvania.