Homophobic Vandals Destroy LGBT Billboard in Bulgaria

Vandals in the seaside town of Varna on Wednesday destroyed a billboard featuring two men hugging in front of the Bulgarian parliament, with the caption: "Nothing to be afraid of. It's just love".

After green paint was splashed on it, it was later slit through with a sharp object, local media reported.

The poster, part of the "Different People, Equal Rights" campaign of the GLAS, or Gays and Lesbians Accepted in Society in Bulgaria Foundation, is co-financed by a European Commission grant.

It is part of a larger campaign that has included workshops with politicians, public lectures and print and online campaigns throughout the year.

The billboards were one of the last parts of the campaign. They were supposed to remain in place from December 3 to January 27, GLAS Foundation told BIRN.

But the posters caused controversy on conservative Facebook groups in Varna, where posts urged people to contact the municipality and tell them they wished the billboards taken down.

"We don't want homosexual and gender posters," one member of the group "Varna against the Istanbul Convention and the Gender Propaganda" exclaimed in a post.

Although it only consists of 680 members, the group has participated in anti-Istanbul Convention parades and has apparently actively targeted the local municipality, which told BIRN it had received over 70 messages from citizens against the posters in the last two days.

A moral panic surrounding a so-called "gender ideology" has spread across Bulgaria in the past year after politicians from both left and right, alongside conservative religious denominations, condemned the Council of Europe's convention on preventing and combating violence against women, known as the Istanbul Convention.

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