Croatia - day after referendum

Well,it is official now - Croatia, the proud new member of EU had voted against gay marriage.

First I must say here that its really strange why in the time of absolute economic collapse, with more than 300 000 unemployed and no local industry worth mentioning (everything that was worth was sold to foreign buyers, all the biggest national firms are owned by foreign investors at this point) there was need for this expensive referendum. Literary, I don't know anybody in Croatia right now who is not worried about keeping the job and making the ends meet until end of the month. Only news on TV are bad news about arrests, corruption and another politician who got in the court.

However, it looks like this was some push-and-pull game of power between church and political regime. New Croatian prime minister had recently announced that there might be some taxes on church properties - perhaps not accidentally, soon afterwards this referendum almost torn apart the whole society where people were dragged into passionate discussions about sanctity of family and what Bible says about it. For a week or two, this discussion about what actually identifies "marriage" (is it union between man or woman or two adults no matter what sex) and what will officially be recognised in country's legal status made people almost forgot about reality and dark shadows towering above everybody. Not that I think this matters are unimportant, but it seems a bit trivial at this point when nobody knows how to survive this fast-crashing train running into the abyss - its almost like tending to flowers in the garden and consciously ignoring storm coming. Huge amount of money was invested in this referendum (fact that in itself alienated a lot of frustrated and bitter people) while church backed lot of family-orientated political groups that behaved like someone will steal their status if they let some minority to have officially recognised rights to marry.

The passionate discussions about this subject surprised even me, though I don't really live in Croatia for many years now - the country literary split into two parts where urban, educated and academic groups went against rural, provincial and impoverished opponents who listened what church told them. I don't ever remember seeing Croatia so divided as on this question - since I was born and raised in capitol, it shocked me to realise that even some of my old friends backed the church and would officially vote to have against gay marriage. Let's outlaw this annoying minority first, than we would deal with the rest, just like Nazis did. Not that gay population ever had any support in Croatia - Pride manifestations routinely had to be protected by police and gay tourists were never welcomed, since coastal part of beautiful Adriatic sea that belong to Croatia is the centre of hard-core traditionalist and church supporters, I believe even Pope would be surprised to find these people so much backwards and behind the times. You know the drill, people who have no patience or understanding of others, be it religion or foreign background.

Perhaps not surprisingly, big majority of voters completely overshadowed liberals yesterday. All this highly publicised media attempts of famous individuals went nowhere. They were no match for church-backed organisations that urged provincial population to "protect their rights" and have some more children along the way, no matter that in future there might be no jobs for anybody. It is official now, Croatia recognises marriage only as union between man and woman and church had won against prime minister who will have hard time now pushing his taxing plans. It is a triumph of primitivity and narrow mindset that it will not leave good impressions of EU that just welcomed it newest member - what is the point of pushing into EU when at home we still burn the witches?What's next, who is the next victim going to be? Disgusting. From now on I will really not really recommend visit to Croatia to any of my international gay friends, who can only end up being beaten up there.