Tallinn, June 20, 2019
Photo: liberties.imgix.net
The Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has sent a letter to foreign representatives with a recommendation to cease supporting the parades of sexual minorities.
“According to the political policy of the new minister, embassies in their countries of residence will not make statements about minorities’ parades in the name of the Estonian republic,” Liisa Toots, the Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, reports Interfax-Religion with reference to the Estonian outlet Delfi.
A new government came to power in Estonia at the end of April, including the centrist Fatherland Party and the Conservative People’s Party, which holds more traditional views and is more skeptical of the influence of Western Europe.
The new Minister of Foreign Affairs Umas Reinsalu noted that the ministry is now “guided by the principle that questions of marriage are, firstly, personal, and, secondly, unambiguously domestic, in which it is inappropriate for other states to interfere in any way.”
“In a state governed by the rule of law, every person has the right to participate in all national assemblies, but participating on behalf of the Estonian state in the parades of sexual minorities and corresponding statements are unnecessary,” the new minister believes.
The first document in support of an LGBT parade that Estonia refused to sign concerned the parade in Warsaw on June 8. The statement was initiated by Great Britain and signed by 45 other countries, including the U.S., France, Germany, Ukraine, and neighboring Baltic states.
Previously, Estonia also signed such documents. A same-sex “family” was entered into Estonia’s population register for the first time ever in January 2017. In December of that year, the actively-participating churches of the Estonian Council of Churches, including the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, adopted a resolution on the necessity of introducing a definition of marriage into the constitution as the union of a man and a woman.
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