I wonder how nudists feel about Croatia and if the anti-gay vote — in which same-sex couples are now barred from getting married — in that country this past weekend would deter them from visiting naturist sites there? Apparently, Croatia is a mecca for naturists, with numerous resorts and beaches catering to them. But how will naturists feel about going to a country where a large percentage of the population is homophobic? Will naturists feel safe there?
Would you boycott the country on principle, whether you are gay or not — i.e. it’s about equal rights, and many people who are not gay still think everyone should have equality. After all, nudists and LGBT people share something in common: they all face discrimination around the world.
I’ve already expressed my opinion: I am a naturist and I will not vacation in Croatia on principle.
Comments?
Jillian
Jillian Page 
Here is the reply I posted to Facebook with regards to your previous post.
Ako ste glasali ZA (protiv gay brakove), ovo je za vas. Sve cu napisati na engleskom; ipak mi je malo lakse. Jebiga.
If you voted FOR (against gay marriage), this is for you. I will be writing in English; it is easier for me to do so. Fuck it.
Many of you might not understand some of the political undertones of this rant, contact me after Wednesday (school work alas) and I will further explain.
You have been duped (yet again) by the so called “conservative” elements of Croatian society into believing that you have scored some sort of moral victory in today’s supposed crusade. In doing so, you have wasted a lot of money on pointless vote pandering that could have been spent on otherwise far more effective measures such as say reducing a budget deficit, or targeting youth under/unemployment/emigration. It’s not like there is a plethora of money or political will to implement significant structural changes in Lijepa Nasa, is there? Or did I miss all those job opportunities that the war profiteering HDZ is providing for all those young people who aren’t leaving in droves for greener pastures (hint, that was sarcasm)?
In 2013, three major victories were achieved (EU: historical vindication for a smaller nation’s role in history; Acquittal of Generals Gotovina and Markac: historical vindication of the war/final political questions within internal politics solved and Qualifiying for Brazil: something that looked less likely as the year progressed but ended up aite). You would think after such a good year, maybe it was time to start talking about real issues? So here they are, along with why this “referendum” is an abomination.
1) Open discrimination is wrong. In a democracy people should be allowed to chose how they live. You wanted a democracy, deal with it. What exactly changes if gays marry again? And wasn’t the lack of representation/denial of some of the most basic human rights (in that case the desire for a nation to chose independence; yes I am comparing that with the desire for two gays to get married) within a majority (albeit providing far more in economic contributions than the average) a major reason why Croatia initially voted for independence from Communist Yugoslavia?
2) All it will take is one appeal to a EU court for this law to be struck down/bogged down in millions of Euros worth of constitutional challenges (see EU discrimination laws). Those who were for this vote are IMO now responsible for picking up the associated legal costs. Put your money where your mouth is.
3) Speaking of costs. You are harming your international reputation. Look at Russia’s anti-gay laws and get back to me.
4) Speaking of international reputation and tourism. Take a look at the link I just posted. Is it really a good idea to be harming an industry worth close to a quarter of your GDP/economy? Is it really a good idea to tell a group of people that have developed a niche in markets that are vital to a quarter of your economy that they are no longer welcome? A niche that relies/effectively communicates on social media and #trends. There is an actual economic argument behind being fabulous (sorry if this sounds like a generalization but everybody knows what I mean here)-> specialization in fashion, event planning, urban boosterism, gentrification, and all that jazz actually translates into dollar signs…
Dollar signs that are desperately needed in a post-communist country that is facing major problems in the coming decades. Dollar signs that were desperately needed during the last 20 years when Croatia’s brand went from war-torn post-communist dump to international pariah to recovering to soccer success to up and coming to beautiful tourist destination. Had you Googled “Croatia” 20 years ago the results would have been emptier than the cumulative intellectual content of the entirety of MTV. Today? Articles praising natural beauty and pushing for more effective tourism that has been diversified in a way that is keeping the whole country alive. 20 years ago it was East Germans who would show up with crates of their own food and barely spend a dime. Today it’s Brits/French/Americans who drop boatloads of cash on far more than just hotel bookings. Without a revival in Croatian tourism, things would be worse off than in Greece. Think that happened by accident? Hell no. And by openly discriminating against an essential demographic in the PR/Branding market, you are really screwing yourself over. Investing in branding was one of the most crucial factors that led to the turning of the tide in the 1990s and this continued to 2013 when millions were spent on the defence teams of the Generals, let alone all those effective tourism ads that have actually scored serious returns on investment. I was in Beograd last summer and ads for Croatia were by far the most prominent. I could keep going but ya’ll should get it by now.
Now, please tell me what the Church/HDZ/social “conservatives” et al. have in store to adequately deal with the major problems coming up in the next few decades, including the potential loss in tourist revenue coming from this “decision”…..
/End Rant. Back to Studying. Almost done my lovely undergrad, Oorah!
On principle I will always defend the land from which my bloodline comes from. That includes being heavily critical of certain segments within. Keep in mind that not all voted against gay marriage, and many people are pissed off with the outcome,
Let me know what you think. Regards.
LikeLike
Thank you for this — I will give it a more thorough reading later: I am at work now, and am squeezing this blog in between assignments.
Cheers
LikeLike
Bon Jour ou Montreal. From Croat, with master degree from UNB Fredericton. And who lives now, for 8 months in Montreal, and like to read FOOD in Montral gazette, each Wednesday!!
This Referendum is for me, also very difficult issue between tradition which is so strong in Croatia, and today!!
And I am very splitt too. With the regard of croatian tourism, only regions of Kvarner, and istria votes against all other Croatians!! What is very important as 90% of Croatian nude beaches are there, not in Dalmatia, not in Dubrovnik.
LikeLike
Thank you for this.
Cheers
LikeLike
So, this follow my post. NOVILIST daily, http://www.novilist.hr/Vijesti/Rijeka/U-Rijeci-pobijedila-sloboda-59-PROTIV-40-za
Rijeka,Pula,Opatija,Umag,Porec,Rovinj, all this cities on Norther Adriatic Coast, voted for Gay couples, around 55%, moreless.
inside part of croatia, Lika where are Plitvica Lakes on example, voted by 90% against Gay couples!!! Dubrvnik, Split, more then 60% voted against gay couples.
CONCLUSIONS. Foreign Gay coples are still very welcome in their traditional resorts in Norther Adriatic, close to Slovenia and Italy!!
LikeLike
What are you trying to say here? Maybe, that gay people should be afraid to go elsewhere in Croatia? Why?
Only problem I could think of one may have is related to local gay population over there putting on communist red star and uniforms that had killed half a million Croats in 20th century.
LikeLike
I agree with the financial argument. Yes The Coats have shot themselves in the feet, They have paid going into this and quite rightly they will pay going out. But for me it is about freedom, human rights and just doing the right thing to your fellow man. It was St. Ambrose of Milan who said ‘No one heals himself by wounding another.’ and that is exactly it. Those who voted for did not make themselves any freer or better by denying the hopes of others. They in fact made themselves smaller and less significant and they actually lost some of their human rights themselves because they squandered their own humanity. Whereas Pope Francis says who is he to judge gay people, the Croatian right said they will. If they believe in their god, then they are the ones that will stand in judgement for their lack of love towards their fellow man. A sad day altogether for Croatia.
LikeLike
Nicely put. Thank you, dear friend.
LikeLike
I have spent about one month being nude in Croatia. Until their ban is reversed, I will not go back…even though I LOVE their beaches!
LikeLike
It’s long and you may not like it, but try to read it all to get the better picture of what have had happen.
First of all 🙂 Forgive me if I’m wrong, but obviously you know nothing about the subject – in this case about Croatia. My judgement is based on another post you made today where you had to look at Wikipedia to find out probably only thing you now know about the country – tourism.
Yes, it’s one of the favorite tourist destination of Europeans, and you know what – IT WILL STAY THAT WAY 🙂 just because most of the tourist guests do not care or are from conservative countries of which some are even more conservative than Croatia is, does not matter what their governments have decided on this subject. But, that’s just tourism, let’s move on.
Now look at Croatia through the magnifying glass and this is what you will see – just to distract the people from poor governing, corruption, blame for this and that, completely destroyed economy, no jobs, no perspective, (no matter what party they are in after 1989) “ex” communists being richer then ever and people poorer than even in the communism era during the Belgrade ruled dictatorship, unemployment among young higher than 50%, 1/4 of population retired in country where there is basically no free press… plus few more things related to economy that are not popular… it is obvious that it was decided by this government that people need to be distracted. So, in last two years they have introduced quite a few changes that they knew will distract the population.
There were so far changes in education most did not like, in language, than it came this throwing under the bus minorities, beside gay population also there was recently introduction of bilingual signs for 4% of population that rebelled and joined Serbia in aggression on Croatia just 20 years ago.
Why would they do that? Only obvious reason for that is so those same politicians buy few more years for themselves.
That’s it.
But, for the end, let’s flip the coin and find something positive in this story. Those same Croats who fought to defend democracy and right to vote on free elections, and at the same time gained finally freedom only 20 years ago, 45 years after western part of Europe gained freedom, now they finally decided to exercise their democratic rights. Turn out on elections was horrible in past 15 years. On referendum to enter EU came out only 43% of voters. Yes, you may say that no one should be put down in the name of personal gain but this referendum organized by the people is the sign that they are starting to exercise their democratic rights.
Let’s hope that this will bring them also to the polls on future election days and let’s extend that hope by saying that with high turn outs this may lead to complete change of politicians who are the only obstacle to prosperity and moving forward for past 68 years.
With prosperity around social changes are never far behind, as we can see by looking at well off countries.
Few more things on the subject;
Referendum was about family – man and women in constitution – same thing that for example Americans have in their constitution – are you already boycotting US for that reason and around 170 other countries around the World?
Did Prime minister of Canada ever say after the last referendum in Quebec, held in 1995, that federal government will change the law and make a list of questions people are NOT allowed to vote on on referendums?
This is what today came out of Prime minister of Croatia, just so you know if you had something to say after I called them “ex” communists (and this is just the tip of an iceberg).
Do you think same is going to be said in Switzerland next year after the referendum with the same question?
BTW, did you see what Rabbi union in Europe said about this referendum?
It’s not all in click troughs and $, the real people are out there.
LikeLike
You are right — I knew very little about Croatia, and I suspect that is true for many people in the West. We don’t hear much about Croatia. I was actually surprised to see that so many people from Croatia read the first post I did about the vote there. It tells me that a lot of people have pride in their country.
Thank you for enlightening all of us about these matters. We do live in a global village now, so what affects one affects all.
Jillian
LikeLike
Ahh. I get it now. It’s OK to discriminate on minorities in order to cover up the shortfalls of the present and past governments and governing groups. (Sounds strangely similar to our situation in Kweebec)
This was referendum in which citizens voted to not allow equal marriage rights to all it’s members. Pure and simple, that’s what happened. To offer a whole bunch of excuses as to why such a retrograde result was achieved simply clouds the the issue. Excuses such as history, traditions, customs etc. do not make a wrong right.
You don’t get bigger by being small and you don’t get better by being weak.
LikeLike
I believe that tourists should give wide berth to Croatia and stay away from it. Picking Croatia as a tourist destination will only help the corrupt and non-democratic regime there. Not only did Croatia reject gay marriage by referendum, there were instances of beating or otherwise harassing gays in Croatia. Avoiding Croatia is simply a smart thing to do.
In addition to that, Croatia is boring, nothing much to see there. Nightlife is zero, hotels rarely have WiFi and even AC is questionable. And yes, I am a Croatian myself,
LikeLike
Thank you for this.
LikeLike
But you’re obviously not living in Croatia…
LikeLike
People often make the mistake of believing that democracy is the finest form of government. They forget that unlimited democracy simply allows for the tyranny of the majority (or of a powerful voting minority). They forget that democracy too must be limited and that the rights of minorities must be protected and defended. The limits to the power and influence of a democratic government needs to be spelled out in its constitution and upheld by an independent judiciary. This is known as constitutionally limited government.
Should we boycott Croatia over the issue of gay marriage? If so, be sure to boycott those states of the American Union that also ban gay marriage such as my home state of Michigan. Vacation only in those states that protect and defend the rights of minorities.
LikeLike
Was on my to do list. Now on my not to do list.
LikeLike
Here is one more opinion from Croatia.
For all of you not living in Croatia: I think it is not fair to judge the whole country (and its citizens) for something the minority voted for. I say minority because only about a third of the people that could vote actually voted, and out of those, about 60% voted for this motion. Everyone who wanted this motion to pass went out and voted for, so if you do numbers, you’ll see they are actually the smaller part of our society. Bad sadly, the big majority didn’t bother to vote, and this is the result :(. I will not further elaborate on why this happened, my compatriots wrote a great deal.
I’ve been nudist for years now, spending most of my vacations at our coast, of course, and have never felt unsafe – not only laying on the beach, but also walking nude for miles on the coast, riding bike naked near the capital, you name it… so to sum it up, I think you’re overreacting by connecting these two things, and by not spending your naked vacations in Croatia just because of some (very) stupid law is.. well, your loss.
LikeLike