Love Nikki Blog

My country is deeply controlled and manipulated right now. There is anti-lgbt propaganda everywhere you look, from giant banners in the streets, flyers, to adds on the internet and most tv channels.

I’m from Romania. One of the poorest countries in Europe. It is deeply christian, on the orthodox side, and the church now has control over the political and social situation. Our “politicians” are so corrupt they are making laws to make corruption legal, looking out for their friends who already got into delux prisons and hoping they won’t get there as well.

A few years ago, the church created this “union”, and they named themselves “Coaliția pentru familie”. In english it means “The Coalition for the Family”. They have created a series of rules, and these include

1. Writing in the Constitution that marriage can only be between a man and a woman (because i suppose it wasn’t clear enough in their opinion), and making it so it can never be changed.

2. Making abortion illegal. No matter whether it was from rape, incest, or if it meant the death of the mother or/and the child.

3. Making any contraceptive means illegal.

4. Stop women from going to work, making them dependable on their male counterparts/family members. And no, i’m not exaggerating that is actually what they wrote

5. Honestly there are so many more these are just at the top of my head

And, in 2016, the Coalition got approx 3 million votes.

Now, i’m not saying that they faked the votes. They (probably) didn’t. However, i know that most people probably didn’t even know what they were signing. They went in churches and made people vote. My grandmother doesn’t know how to read or write; all she knows is how to make a signature. She goes to church and i wouldn’t be surprised if they made her and people like her vote for things they really don’t understand.

Moving back to 2018. The political situation in Romania is….

Horrible.

On the 10th of August, there was a protest the diaspora organised. They came from countries all around the world back in romania to protest against the horridly corrupt government. The gov got the gendarmerie involved, and so over 450 people got into hospitals, some of them even in critical condition. And nobody is answering, moving the blame from themselves to the protesters themselves. And, amongst all this misery and conflict, in order to distract the people, they decided to have a refferendum. Against gay marriage.

The refferendum is asking whether they should change the constitution in the way the Coalition wants to or not. It costs over 45 million euros, and it’s going to be in 2 different days, 6 and 7 of october. It is very illegal. They complain that it’s not clear enough, but if that were the case it would mean that

a. Gay marriage is already legal, therefore they are depleting people from human rights

b. It’s not legal, making this whole thing absolutely useless.

This is only the beginning. There is no way we can win; the population is still deeply homophobic, racist, xenophobic, sexist, etc etc whatever you can think of, it is. But if this thing passes, then the other “laws” will have a chance too. And so, we’ll be moved back in the eighteenth century.

There is propaganda everywhere, especially in the big cities. These are just a small portion of them:

This internet add hurts a lot. 1918 is a very important year in our history, as it was the year we were able to unify Romania, and it is seen as the wish our people had for hundreds and hundreds of years, and so many people died for that dream. And now, they’re comparing this piece of shit of a refferendum with our nation’s only goal?? On the 100th anniversary????

Newspaper propaganda, where they are comparing gay people to fucking nazis

Tv add

They say “protect our kids” but to be honest with you, i feel anything but protected right now

My hands are shaking as i’m writing this. Our only hope is that people will boicot the ref, but many have been told by their priests that if they don’t go vote, they will publicly be shamed.

Here’s a link to an article that probably explains things better than i did

Romania to hold vote on whether to permanently ban gay marriage | The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/romania-gay-marriage-ban-referendum-vote-lgbt-rights-a8541461.html

If the image doesn’t load/for those who don’t understand romanian. The text says.

“So kids! Someone harassed me on the bus today. Apparently someone who saw us scratch/take off the flyers and posters got on the bus with me. I was sitting by the doors and this man(with a child!) sat in front of me. And at the first stop, he turned to me and slapped me hard enough to hit the window ran off the bus when it stopped.

He almost dropped the child as well.”

My friend is literally a tiny thing. 5'2 and slim built. A fully grown man, a stranger, a person who “cares about children”, a parent hit her. This is not normal. And it makes me afraid. Afraid to walk on the fucking streets of my own country, afraid to let my friends walk bythemselves, afraid to exist because one day, someone will hit just a bit too hard, someone will decide hitting someone once won’t be enough, someone will think a that a weapon, be it a stick, a knife or a goddamn gun, will do better.

And what then? We’ll die. We are dieing. From fear. From hate. From this goddamn society. We we’ll continue dieing if something isn’t done.

I posted a video of me and my friends scratching a propagandist poster and a nazi harrased us, telling us he would break our legs, calling us names etc. just because we were scratching off a poster.

Everywhere you go you see stickers or banners saying “Vote YES to the referendum! Protect the children of Romania!”. There are people giving out fliers with the same message. There was a protest a few days ago but I don’t think it will change much, if anything at all.