EASTERN EUROPEAN LGBT HISTORY AND POLITICS

Roman Kuhar

Its the End of the World as We Know It:

Marriage Equality Debates in Slovenia
Placing same-sex partnership debates in Slovenia in its historical context, the lecture focuses both
on the role of political parties the right-wing government of Janez Jana adopted Registered
Same-sex Partnership Act in 2005 and the role of the Roman Catholic Church and its satellite
civil initiatives, which prevented the adoption of the new Family Code and consequently marriage
equality in 2012. While it seems on the surface that the right-wing government adopted same-sex
partnership legislature in order to protect the human rights of LGBT people, their aim was rather
different: to reinforce the heteronormative institution of marriage. Similarly with the same goal
the Roman Catholic Church in Slovenia increasingly refrained from using biblical discourse
during the Family Code debate (2009-2012), substituting it with what appeared as a rational,
scientific discourse. In such away, the Church is secularizing its discourse in order to clericalize
society. Furthermore, it is successfully reinventing the issues of family and marriage as an
ideological battleground of contemporary cultural wars in post-socialist societies, constituting
gays and lesbians as the outsiders within the nation.
Roman Kuhar is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Ljubljana (Faculty of Arts,
Department of Sociology) and researcher at the Peace Institute, Ljubljana. His research topics
include lgbt/queer studies, media, citizenship, and sexuality. He is the author of several books,
among others Media Construction of Homosexuality (2003), At the Crossroads of Discrimination
(2009), co-author (with A. vab) of The Unbearable Comfort of Privacy (2005) and co-editor (with
J. Takcs) of Beyond The Pink Curtain: Everyday life of LGBT people in Eastern Europe (2007) and
Doing Families: Gay and Lesbian Family Practices (2011). He is also the editor of the Slovenian
LGBT magazine Narobe (Wrong).

Thursday, 19 November 2015, 15:00-17:00

REC C [Nieuwe Achtergracht 166], Room 3.01

The lecture is organized in the framework of Dr Bojan Bilis research project:

[Post-]Yugoslav LGBT Activism: Between Nationalism and Europeanisation

The lecture is free and open to the public. Registration is not required.
For more information visit: www.arcgs.uva.nl