When you talk about queer rights in places like certain parts of the United States, there’s a chance that Sweden – among some other European nations – will be held up as an ideal to emulate.
In Sweden the gays have it good. Right?
The fight is largely won, which has brought the country into the sights of Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, who operate the site God Hates Sweden. (more…)
Let’s first of all be honest and admit that there are few countries on earth that are better to be gay in than Sweden.
Okay, they pay filthy high taxes, but at least they can marry whoever they want, and if they want a kid they can stomp down to an adoption agency and apply for one.
Not every issue has been solved. Lesbians still face the fact that if you’re inseminated, your spouse doesn’t automatically become the parent. Transgender people need to sterilize themselves before they can switch gender legally.
Such issues still remain to be solved, but there is no real fear that the new government that was elected on Sunday would act against it.
That does not, however, stop the same election results from being very worrying from an LGBT perspective.
The ruling Conservative-Liberal alliance (C+M+FP+KD in the diagram) won the election, and the Labour-Socialist-Green (S+V+MP) alliance lost it. That about sums it up.
The only part of the so called Red-green coalition that improved its lot were the greens, that advanced by two percentage points, compared to four years ago.
But a Conservative-Liberal win is not a disaster for Swedish LGBT-rights. It was, after all, the Conservative-Liberal alliance that ushered in same-sex marriages in the last session of parliament.
In Sweden, Conservative does not necessarily mean anti-gay. There are some elements of anti-gay among the Conservatives, of curse, but they tend to reside in the miniscule Christian Democrats with around 5 percent of the vote.
When the same-sex marriage vote was up, even the coalition partners ignored them and just voted the law through anyway. Nobody cares for the anti-gay in Sweden.
Labour made its absolutely worst election since the introduction of the popular vote. You have to go back to 1914 to find similar numbers for the once dominant party of Swedish politics.
This is the second consecutive election that the Social Democrats (Labour) has lost a big share of its vote. In 2006 they fell to about 35 percent of the vote. This time they fell to just shy of 31 percent.
For a party that just a decade ago was assured a forty percent share, or more, of the popular vote it’s a disaster. For a party that a decade ago saw a Conservative party hover around 15% in the polls, it is a dire tragedy.
Now the Conservatives are as big as Labour. And that stings deep in every Social Democrat, who have not accustomed themselves to being a party among others.
And if that wasn’t enough, with the introduction of a polished made-over neo-Nazi party the Sweden Democrats, Labour loses one of its big ambitions. Their stated aim was to keep he Sweden Democrats out of power.
The Sweden Democrats are no boon to the government, because the government alliance captured just 172 of the needed 175 seats in the parliament.
The Sweden Democrats gained 20 seats on Sunday, and the situation for continued governance without relying on the racists seem uncertain, although every other party has publically stated that they want nothing to do with the newcomers.
The concept of a hung parliament is on everyones minds in Sweden now, and it’s like having the BNP standing between the UK Labour and the Tories in the last election.
Not an enviable position for the government, and not an enviable position for LGBT because as a racist populist party, they are of course also raging homophobes.
The ignorable Christian Democrats had no influence on LGBT-issues in the previous session because they were so small. There was an overwhelming parliamentary support for the LGBT-issues.
Now, the anti-gay side has increased, and more than doubled. Instead of an ignorable five percent of the chamber, the anti-gay fringe has swelled to over 11 percent.
That could be all that is needed for our issues to grind to a staggering halt for the next four years. And if worst comes to worst, Sweden could degrade from being the ideal.
Time will tell.
So, as I write this, the polling stations in Sweden are about to close, and soon we will be presented with an estimate of how it will turn out by the publically financed Swedish Television.
To sum it up, there have been no focus at all on LGBT issues in the election, with one little caveat. The situation for LGBT-people have not come at all in this election that have been dominated by jobs, the economy and the state of the welfare state.
The caveat is that the polished up neo-nazi party Sweden Democrats might get parliamentary representation for the first time, and if that happens LGBT might face difficulties in the next session of parliament.
The estimate has just been published even as I write this. The labour bloc, consisting of Labour, the Left Party (former communists) and the green party is estimated to get 45,1 percent. The conservative-liberal block, which consists of the Conservatives, the two liberal parties, and the Christian Democrats is estimated to get 49,1 %.
The Sweden Democrats are expected to get 4,6%, and therefore seems to squeak into parliament. The limit is 4%.
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