Slovakia’s Culture Minister Martina Šimkovičová has blamed the LGBTQ+ community for Europe’s declining birth rate. In an interview with Slovakian tabloid Topky, the government official said that “Europe is dying” because of the “excessive number of people” who are part of the LGBTQ+ community.
“We heterosexuals are creating the future because we have children. Europe is dying, children are not being born because of the excessive number of LGBTQ+ people. And the strangest thing is – [que isso está a acontecer] “with the white race,” he said in an interview translated by Politico.
This is not the first time the minister has made homophobic statements. In January, he announced that the Ministry of Culture would stop funding LGBTQ+ projects in order to “return to normal life.”
Unlike racist and anti-Semitic comments, which are banned in Slovakia, comments against LGBTQ+ people are prohibited.
According to Politicalgay rights have come under increasing pressure since Prime Minister Robert Fico’s left-wing government came to power last year. The Slovak prime minister has already called same-sex adoptions a “perversion” and challenged opposition leader Michal Simeka to “decide whether it’s a boy, a girl or a helicopter today.”
Before joining Fico’s government, Martina Šimkovičová worked as a news anchor for TV Markiza, which fired her in 2015 for spreading anti-migrant content on social media. He later joined the disinformation channel Slovan, where he spread conspiracy theories.