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Same-Sex Relationships: Why Do Many Latvian Politicians Resist Them?

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Same-Sex Relationships: Why Do Many Latvian Politicians Resist Them? SSE Riga Student Research Papers 2021 : 2 (234) SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIPS: WHY DO MANY LATVIAN POLITICIANS RESIST THEM? Authors: Daniela Gerda Baranova Samanta Mežmale ISSN 1691-4643 ISBN 978-9984-822-58-7 May 2021 Riga Same-Sex Relationships: Why Do Many Latvian Politicians Resist Them? Daniela Gerda Baranova and Samanta Mežmale Supervisor: Xavier Landes May 2021 Riga Table of Contents List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................................. 5 Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... 6 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 7 2. Literature Review .................................................................................................................. 9 2.1. LGBT in the World ......................................................................................................... 9 2.1.1. LGBT Movement ....................................................................................................... 9 2.1.2. Legislation ................................................................................................................ 10 2.1.3. Sexual orientation discrimination and homophobia ................................................. 11 2.1.4. Supporting organisations .......................................................................................... 11 2.1.5. Rainbow index .......................................................................................................... 12 2.2. LGBT in Latvia ............................................................................................................. 12 2.2.1. Movement ................................................................................................................. 13 2.2.2. Pride .......................................................................................................................... 13 2.2.3. Discrimination and Homophobia.............................................................................. 15 2.2.4. Legislation ................................................................................................................ 15 2.2.5. Supporting organisations .......................................................................................... 18 2.2.6. Latvian political parties and their stances................................................................. 19 2.3. The most popular arguments against same-sex marriage and civil unions ............. 20 2.3.1. Unnatural and immoral. ............................................................................................ 20 2.3.2. Sickness. ................................................................................................................... 20 2.3.3. Traditional family values and morality. ................................................................... 21 2.3.4. Religion. ................................................................................................................... 21 2.3.5. Demographics. .......................................................................................................... 22 2.4. Previous research on homophobic speech of politicians ............................................ 22 3. Methodology ......................................................................................................................... 24 3.1. Research Design............................................................................................................. 24 3.2. Methods .......................................................................................................................... 24 3.2.1. Document Analysis................................................................................................... 24 3.2.2. Moral Analysis ......................................................................................................... 25 3.3. Data ................................................................................................................................. 28 3.4. Limitations ..................................................................................................................... 30 4. Results and Discussion ......................................................................................................... 31 4.1. Argument Categorization ............................................................................................. 31 3 4.2. Argument reformulation .............................................................................................. 33 4.2.1. Unnaturalness ........................................................................................................... 33 4.2.2. Traditional Latvian Family Values ........................................................................... 34 4.2.3. Religion .................................................................................................................... 35 4.2.4. Demographics ........................................................................................................... 36 4.2.5. Constitution .............................................................................................................. 36 4.2.6. Rejection of discrimination ...................................................................................... 37 4.2.7. Social reluctance ....................................................................................................... 38 4.2.8. Immoral .................................................................................................................... 39 4.3. Evaluation of argument strength ................................................................................. 39 4.3.1. Unnaturalness ........................................................................................................... 40 4.3.2. Traditional Latvian Family Values ........................................................................... 40 4.3.3. Religion .................................................................................................................... 42 4.3.4. Demographics ........................................................................................................... 43 4.3.5. Constitution .............................................................................................................. 44 4.3.6. Rejection of Discrimination...................................................................................... 45 4.3.7. Social reluctance ....................................................................................................... 46 4.3.8. Immoral .................................................................................................................... 47 5. Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 49 6. References ............................................................................................................................. 51 7. Appendices ............................................................................................................................ 71 Appendix A - Countries where same-sex marriage and civil unions are legal................... 71 Appendix B - Description of sexual orientation-based discrimination .............................. 71 Appendix C - Rainbow index from 2010 to 2020 .............................................................. 72 Appendix D - Rainbow Index 2020 country table .............................................................. 74 Appendix E - Table of Latvian 13th Saeima election political parties and their stances on LGBT matters. .................................................................................................................... 74 Appendix F - Saeima politicians and Ministers, and their stances/votes regarding SSMCU. ............................................................................................................................................ 76 Appendix G - Quotes in Latvian from Latvian politicians on the discussed arguments. ... 83 Appendix H - Birth rate and population change in European countries that have allowed same-sex marriage or same-sex civil unions ...................................................................... 87 Appendix I - Questions for semi-structured interviews...................................................... 91 Appendix J - Reformulated arguments ............................................................................... 91 4 List of Abbreviations The authors use abbreviations in the text: ● Civil unions - we use civil unions to comprise any denotations of it, like, civil partnerships, registered partnerships, registered unions, etc. ● LGBT - for the simplicity of the reader, we will further use Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) to encompass Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer or Questioning (LGBTQ), Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) and any other denotation of the community, except when it is in the name of a book, in a quote, etc. ● LR - literature review ● RQ - research question ● Saeima - Latvian Parliament ● SSCU - same-sex civil unions. ● SSMCU - same-sex marriage and/or civil unions. ● SSM - same-sex marriage. Other
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