EuroGames Munich - EuroGames 2004 München

Whoever is brave enough to do so, quite often has to bear defamation and
abuse. Especially lesbians are affected. Most homosexuals choose the
strategy to be silent and to hide in order to be accepted. This way lesbians
and gay factor out an important part of their lives. While heterosexuals
openly talk about their day-to-day life at home, lesbians and gays circumvent
the topic of relationships.
This is humiliating – and the EuroGames are campaigning to change
matters. As a lesbian-gay big event the Games are not only a tournament of
likeminded people that will show that lesbians and gays in sport do exist and
that they do sport like everybody else. The EuroGames have a political
statement as well: against intolerance, ostracism and violence they promote
the statement: “Everybody is welcome irrespective of their origin, sexual
orientation, religious or political alignment.
In the last 20 years a lot was achieved. But we can barely talk of complete
equalisation. Depressing is especially the situation in rural areas outside of
Western Europe’s main cities or in Eastern and Southern Europe. The
recently planned parade of homosexuals in Cracow had to be abandoned
because the police could not guarantee for the safety of the participants. And
also in Germany the protests of some self-appointed upholders of moral
standards at the Christopher Street Day in Altötting (Southern Bavaria) end
of June has shown how deep the Bavarian province today can still be.
It is a cliché that women and gays can’t play football – a cliché that will
definitely be disproved of during the EuroGames in Munich.