Serb Minister Rebuked by Gay-Rights Groups for `Archaic' Remarks

(Bloomberg) -- Serbian gay-rights groups rebuked a government minister on Thursday for his call to halt imports of a children’s book that depicts same-sex couples as parents, saying his comments are “archaic.”

Nenad Popovic, Serbia’s minister for innovation and technological development, said imports of the book from Croatia “must be urgently stopped,” stirring a backlash in this Balkan country, which has a prime minister who openly says she’s gay. Serbia also seeks to join the European Union around 2025.

“His statement is archaic and discriminatory because it sounds as if this is 2008 and not 2018,” Lazar Pavlovic, the acting president of the Gay Straight Alliance, said by phone. Other groups demanded a public apology for the minister’s Wednesday post on Twitter.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gordana Filipovic in Belgrade at gfilipovic@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrea Dudik at adudik@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Konstantinova

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.