http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/08/world/europe/after-latvian-minister-declares-hes-gay-new-front-opens-in-europes-cultural-war.html 2014-11-08 04:26:43 After Latvian Minister Declares He’s Gay, New Front Opens in Europe’s Cultural War Differing reactions to Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics’s declaration seemed to reveal the contours of a cultural fault line between East and West. === When Latvia’s foreign minister, Edgars Rinkevics, declared on Twitter on Thursday that he was “proud to be gay,” the announcement was welcomed there by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights activists, who have faced open hostility from social conservatives in the former Soviet republic. As Another Mozaika activist, Kristine Garina, In neighboring countries, contrasting reactions to the minister’s declaration — and his statement, in Latvian, that he would also work for legal recognition for same-sex couples — seemed to reveal the contours of a cultural fault line on the issue in post-Cold War Europe between West and East. Officials from the European Union, of which Latvia is a member, lined up in support of Mr. Rinkevics, as did the United States Embassy in Riga, the Latvian capital. In addition to receiving praise from the president of neighboring Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Mr. Rinkevics was saluted by German and Italian diplomats. The reaction from Russia, which put in effect a A “Perhaps it would be more correct and humane to not pay any attention to this at all,” the RIA Novosti commentator Michael Sheinkman observed. “In the end, everyone has his faults. Although not everyone tries to elevate them into virtues.” Mr. Sheinkman’s take on the matter was broadcast by a state news agency that was As The depth of the West-East divide on the issue was made clear by Latvia was not one of the nations studied by the Pew researchers, but the depth of feeling against L.G.B.T. rights was made clear in the outraged reaction from social conservatives there to the first gay pride parade in Riga, in 2005. Some of that anger was As Scott Lively, an American evangelical activist against gay rights, known for More recently, as the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association Activists pressing for the amendment Shortly before Mr. Rinkevics revealed his sexual orientation on Thursday, he had used his Twitter account to condemn Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, for defending the 1939 Speaking to a group of Russian historians on Wednesday, In response, Mr. Rinkevics wrote that those remarks suggest that “there is huge trouble with contemporary Russia.”