First gay, female PM to take reins in Serbia

Serbia is not known for its gay-friendly policies.

More than half the country’s residents consider homosexuality a “sickness,” and 48 percent said they’d try to find their son or daughter a “cure” if they came out. Nearly threequarters of the country’s openly gay residents say they’ve faced discrimination and violence because of their sexual orientation.

In 2009, Serbian Orthodox Bishop Amfilohije Radovic compared Pride parades to “Sodom and Gomorrah.” A year later, a lawmaker described homosexuality as an “illness, perversion, deviance and aberration, and a social problem which caused a confrontation between the representatives of a healthy, heterosexual Serbia.”

Now, though, the country’s president, Aleksander Vucic, has made a historic decision: naming Ana Brnabic prime minister. If her cabinet is approved this week, she will become a double first: the country’s first female and openly gay head of government.

“I will run the government with dedication and responsibility and I will do my job honestly and with love,” Brnabic told state Tanjug news agency, adding that she will focus on goals “bigger and more important than all of us individually.”

If approved, Brnabic will join a handful of other openly gay leaders in Europe. Earlier this month, Ireland selected Leo Varadkar, the openly gay son of an Indian immigrant, to head its governing party. Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel is also out of the closet. And Iceland, ever ahead of the curve, elected its first openly gay prime minister in 2009.

Brnabic attended school in Great Britain and has a background in business and marketing.