Manifesto of the 19th Zagreb Pride March of the LGBTIQ community, persons and families, 19.9.2020.
We – lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, intersex and queer persons, rainbow families, and the community gathered in the 19th Zagreb Pride March, demand full constitutional equality.
This year, our “new normal” is that the Pride March will, for the first time, start on St. Mark’s Square, in front of the Parliament, the Government, and the Constitutional Court. We are not here by chance, we are here to demand of the highest authorities of our Republic to tear down the walls which still limit our rights, and still treat our families as second-class citizens.
Therefore, we demand a procedure for a constitutional amendment that will make all families equal in their rights and responsibilities to be initiated. The time has come to amend the unjust and deeply humiliating regulation on the definition of marriage so that it finally includes same-sex families.
The recent Constitutional Court decision which enabled same-sex families to become foster parents clearly indicates the extent to which the constitutional limit from 2013 is obsolete, absurd, and unnatural.
It does not reflect the reality of our everyday lives. We are living witnesses of this injustice. Every day we witness lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, intersex, and queer persons in Croatia starting families, with their children or without them, and yet we still do not live in full equality of rights and dignity.
In this, nineteenth year of the Pride March, we are fighting for constitutional equality and the right to freedom within and beyond our four walls! For freedom, equality, and safety in our homes with our families, as well as in our streets and squares, guaranteed by our laws, primarily the Croatian Constitution. To us, the Constitution currently presents a wall, because it limits and suppresses our freedom. We must tear that wall down.
