1. Construction of a democratic grass-root organization on lesbian and gay emancipation based in Bucharest
        The beginning
        The Construction of ACCEPT
        Structure of ACCEPT. The institutionalization of ACCEPT
        ACCEPT development
2. Establishment of a 'safe house' in order to build a positive LGBT self-identity in a safe environment
3. Providing basic information on homosexuality to lesbian women and gay men
4. Change public opinion on homosexuality by contacting social and political opinion leaders and mass media
5. Human Rights - Social and legal situation of lesbian women and gay men
        Legal aspects of the problem
        What ACCEPT has done so far for the repeal of the antigay legislation
        Social and Ethical aspects of the problem

The beginning

ACCEPT appeared in 1994 under the name of Bucharest Acceptance Group – a handful of foreign citizens who took the courage to speak out about homosexuality. Bucharest Acceptance Group organized the symposium “Homosexuality – A Human Right?” (Bucharest, May 1995) and the first seminar for gay people ever held in Romania (Sinaia, November 1995), events that certified the need for a Romanian organization to speak out for LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered) people. Thanks to the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Bucharest, ACCEPT started in 1996 negotiations with (now) the Federation of Dutch Associations for the Integration of Homosexuality (COC Netherlands) for a 3-year partnership project sponsored by the MATRA Program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands (MATRA is a Funding Program to support social transformation in the former totalitarian societies of Central and Eastern Europe).

The Construction of ACCEPT

“ACCEPT” is the name under which Bucharest Acceptance Group registered in 1996 as a Romanian, not for profit, non governmental, human rights organization, working for LGBT at a national level.

Structure of ACCEPT. The institutionalization of ACCEPT

ACCEPT has grown from a group of volunteers to an institutionalized organization. ACCEPT is based in Bucharest where it is headquartered, although the ACCEPT members and sympathizers are from all over Romania. Within ACCEPT various groups emerged in accordance with their needs, i.e. youth, religious debates, dance, music, handicraft, foreign languages groups. The most visible among these groups are the lesbian women who are the only subgroup that has elected a leader (now a member of the Board of ACCEPT).
ACCEPT is structured in three departments: (1) Lobby & Information, (2) Social Services and Activities, and (3) Administration (see attached organigram).

The working structure of ACCEPT is based on a Board, a Staff and a Group of Volunteers (see attached organigram). The Board of ACCEPT, consisting of 5 members, is the policy-making body. Board members cannot be employed on staff positions. The Staff (number varying between 3 and 9) of ACCEPT is the policy-implementing body, consisting of people employed on the projects contracted by ACCEPT with various funding agencies. Volunteers (number varying between 5 and 20) help with concrete tasks or organize activities of interest for LGBT people. The supreme decision-making body is the ACCEPT General Assembly, meeting once a year.

The ACCEPT membership increased from 21 to 121 registered members. Members are of three categories: Active Members, who undertake concrete tasks, Sympathizers, who become members to show their support to ACCEPT and its mission, and Honorary Members, who are granted this title as a recognition of their special efforts to support and develop ACCEPT.
Apart from the registered members, several hundreds of people are Beneficiaries of ACCEPT services and activities.

ACCEPT development

The fundamental document of ACCEPT is its Constitution which was modified once by the General Assembly so as to ensure a better functioning of the organization.

The organizational development of ACCEPT was the object of both training courses and evaluations, some of these under the supervision of FDSC (Civil Society Development Foundation) – a Romanian organization providing technical assistance to NGOs. It included a process of Strategic Planning and Fundraising, the development of office management and administration, organizational structure, evaluation, management of volunteers, and other aspects of NGO management.. Thanks to them, today ACCEPT has the capacity to organize its own (strategic) planning and training courses, and moreover, to provide internships to students and representatives of other organizations.

In a country with no visibility of LGBT, these people are living in fear and with few opportunities to develop a positive self-identity. In order to counterbalance this situation, ACCEPT set out to increase self-esteem among LGBT by social networking and educational activities. The concept of ‘safe house’ described above comes from the COC which organized in the same way in the Netherlands about 50 years ago.

There were four main types of activities organized under the concept of ‘safe house’:
 

• Debates on issues of interest for LGBT, such as asylum and immigration, legal provisions and judicial practice, women issues and visibility, religious matters, health issues, volunteering, etc. Sometimes ACCEPT invited a speaker from other institutions such as the Netherlands Embassy or Population Services International (the former to discuss issue of Romanian LGBT and asylum and immigration, and the latter for HIV and BTS prevention).
• Group meetings. Meetings and discussions about the special needs of (lesbian) women, youth, elderly people. Women organized in a subgroup in ACCEPT and funding has been available for their activities.
• Expressing the LGBT culture though various activities, dance, and music. A dance group and an ethno group got organized; they facilitate the cross cultural process between LGBT and straight people.
• Training and counseling in matters identified as necessary for a better social and psychological status of LGBT (for example coming out -the process in which one admits to one’s sexual identity and orientation and disclose this aspect with family, friends and colleagues in order to attain psychological balance and social recognition- or social and family integration).

These activities were organized twice a week for the first two years, and more often and on various schedules in the third year when ACCEPT succeeded in buying and moving into more adequate premises. Attendance ranged from 15 to 60 people per meeting, up to 30 percent being women. ACCEPT has always had heterosexual people involved in its activities, both in order to welcome straight people who believe in the cause of ACCEPT, but also because of the belief that integration of LGBT in society has to begin from inside ACCEPT.

In a country where human rights are denied to LGBT, there are few opportunities to find correct information about homosexuality. LGBT youth have to face isolation and have hardly any chance to build a positive self-image. In this context, ACCEPT had to find, translate, store and distribute correct information about what homosexuality is and is not.
The means towards this end were:
 
• To produce a monthly newsletter (about 11 issues per year)  and leaflets on LGBT issues, such as coming out, psychological aspects related to homosexuality, or religion. These materials have been distributed free of charge to an increasing network of ACCEPT readers, of LGBT people, NGOs, public institutions, and the media.
• To establish a Center of Information and Documentation (CID) with a library comprising materials on LGBT and gender issues. LGBT people, journalists and an increasing number of students find here information and professional help from a documentalist. Most books were donated by individuals and institutions from around the world and are usually in English and/or Romanian. (CID was co-sponsored by the Open Society Institute - the Gender Grant Program)

ACCEPT has had to operate in a society where one could hardly find correct information about homosexuality and LGBT issues. Homosexuality was associated with pedophilia, promiscuity and passionate crimes, and the image of LGBT people on television restricted to gay pride parades in Western Europe and North America, since there are no local openly gay VIPs. In this context, ACCEPT has had to learn how to work with the media and with opinion leaders to counteract the above-described images. Activities undertaken in this respect were:
 

• Permanent work with journalists providing information and facilitating with LGBT people  on all national and on many local TV, radio stations and publications, increasing the press cover with neutral and positive articles and audio and video materials on homosexuality. ACCEPT representatives appeared hundreds of times in all types of media.
• Elaborate ACCEPT PR policies, directly improving the image of LGBT in Romania
• Monitoring the way in which LGBT issues were reflected in the media and respond to articles which provided incorrect information about homosexuality. (For more information please see “Homosexuality in the Written Media in Romania” by Antonia Creteanu and Adrian Coman, 1998.)
• Training for journalists, including a visit of Romanian journalists to the LGBT community in Copenhagen (December 1998)
• Contacting politicians, public authorities (such as the Presidency of Romania, the Police, and the Ministry of Justice), and other institutions (such as universities and NGOs) directly (through meetings and letters).
• Approaching homosexuality in Romania from the perspective of human rights and non discrimination
• Acting as part of the Romanian civil society and taking part in its associative life (the annual Forum of NGOs , other NGO meetings, contacts with opinion leaders and with groups of citizens). For instance, based on a proposal initiated by ACCEPT, the 1998 NGO Forum issued a resolution asking the Romanian Parliament “to abolish article 200 of the Penal Code which denies homosexuals fundamental rights and freedoms, such as the right to free association”.

Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals are still discriminated against by law in today’s Romania, in a context where homophobia is not discouraged by the public authorities, but actually encouraged by several political and religious groups.

Legal aspects of the problem:

a. The Law. Article 200 of the Romanian Penal Code reads:

Paragraph 1: “Same sex relations taking place in public or resulting in a public scandal, shall be punished by one to five years imprisonment.”
Paragraph 5: “Enticing or seducing a person to practice same sex relations, as well as propaganda, association or other forms of proselytism with the same aim shall be punished by one to five years’ imprisonment.”

The phrasing “public scandal” is not defined anywhere in the Romanian legislation, while “in public” has a vague definition that can cover almost anything; "in public" is defined in article 152 of the Penal Code.
"The deed is considered to be committed "in public" when committed:
a) in a place that by its nature or purpose is always accessible to the public, even if  no one is present there;
b) in any other place accessible to the public, if two or more persons are present;
c) in a place unaccessible to the public, with the intention that the deed be seen or heard and if this consequence occurs before two or more persons;
d) in a meeting of two or more persons, except for meetings that can be considered  family meetings due to the nature of the relationships between the participating persons;
e) through any means by which the actor has knowledge that the occurrence may reach the public."
 

Article 200 denies to gay and lesbian people the right to privacy, freedom of expression and freedom of association.

b. The Legal Practice

In the totalitarian communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, the criminal law was used against gay people as a means of blackmail and (political) disparagement.
When the foundations of democracy were laid in Romania (the end of 1989), judges and prosecutors interpreted article 200 in various ways, most of the time not in favor of the gay person and tended to give the maximum penalty. Hundreds of gay people were imprisoned or held in pre-trial detention in the 1990s, making Romania the only member state of the Council of Europe to enforce criminal laws against same sex relations between consenting adults and taking place in private.

Police officers  have often been reported to harass gay people and the latter rarely filled out an official complaint against the former, fearing the disclosure of their sexual orientation to the media, families and work colleagues. (“Homosexuals reportedly have been the victims of police brutality”, extract from the US Department of State, Human Rights Report for 1999 – Romania (source www.state.gov consulted on March 8, 2000)

c. Political trends

Governments in power after 1996 have taken a more liberal approach to lesbian and gay people, in particular by acknowledging the discrimination against them. Draft laws for the repeal of article 200 were drafted and submitted to the Parliament. Although in principle the Government is supported by the majority of the Parliament for its legal initiatives, in this case the Chamber of Deputies rejected the first draft law in June 1998.

Another draft law for the repeal of article 200 within the Penal Code reform was submitted by the Government to the Parliament in October 1999, and was passed by the Chamber of Deputies (the Lower Chamber of the Parliament) on June 28, 2000.

The Senate has not yet voted on this draft law at the time of this report was drawn.

An increasing anti-gay right-winged movement organizes homophobic actions, such as the posting of  “NO, NO, NO to homosexuality” signs around Bucharest.
 

What ACCEPT has done so far for the repeal of the antigay legislation

ACCEPT was set up in 1994 as an organization fighting for the repeal of the antigay legislation in Romania. Towards this end, in 1995 and 1996, ACCEPT worked with foreign organizations and individuals to increase pressure from abroad on the Romanian public authorities.
Since the change of political regime in 1996, ACCEPT changed its strategy, seeking also support from within Romania and approaching directly representatives of the (new) Romanian authorities.

In March 1998, ACCEPT submitted to the Ministry of Justice a draft law for the modification of the chapter on ‘sex life’ of the Romanian Penal Code. The draft law highlighted that there should be no special criminal laws for gay people alone, but general criminal provisions applied when same sex and heterosexual sex alike result in criminal offences such as rape or pedophilia. ACCEPT has used this principle on a permanent campaign ever since.

In May 1998, the Government submitted to the Parliament a draft law reflecting the above mentioned principle that ACCEPT was promoting. In July 1998, ACCEPT deplored publicly the refusal of the Chamber of Deputies to pass the government’s draft law and lobbied (through ILGA) the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to keep up the pressure on the Romanian authorities and to monitor the observance of gays and lesbians’ human rights.

In September 1998, ACCEPT was a key actor in setting up a working group at the 1998 Romanian NGO Forum that encouraged the Forum to adopt a resolution asking the Romanian Parliament to abolish article 200 of the Penal Code. It was the first time when a concerted support for the repeal of the antigay law came not from abroad, but from within Romania. (Based on a proposal initiated by ACCEPT, the 1998 NGO Forum issued a resolution asking the Romanian Parliament “to abolish article 200 of the Penal Code which denies homosexuals fundamental rights and freedoms, such as the right to free association”.)

In May 1999, ACCEPT received support from the Romanian Academic Society (SAR) – an academic lobbying NGO – for bringing its draft law to the attention of the Parliament and of the public. As a result, SAR included ACCEPT’s draft law for the repeal of article 200 in SAR’s campaign.

In October 1999, ACCEPT participated in a debate organized by SAR with members of the Senate on why antigay legislation should be abolished in Romania.

In December 1999, ACCEPT produced and distributed 3,000 copies of the leaflet “Reasons to Repeal Article 200 of the Penal Code”.

Throughout 2000, ACCEPT increased the visibility of LGBT in society by addressing directly to all Romanian Senators, the Orthodox Church, the President of Romania, the Government and the general public, and explaining the reasons for which article has to be abolished and the consequences for both the LGBT community and for the Romanian society in general if that continues to be postponed.

ACCEPT’s efforts to advocate for the rights of gays and lesbians have been acknowledged at the international level by the awarding of the “Egalite” Prize  for 1999 and a nomination from the Green Group in the European Parliament for the Sacharov Prize for 1999. The “Egalite Prize” is awarded every year by EGALITE – an organization of gay and lesbian employees working in and around European Union institutions.

Social and Ethical aspects of the problem

General Public: for so many people in public and private life, the expression of homophobic prejudice remains both legitimate and respectable - in a manner that would be utterly unacceptable for any other minority. However, more and more openess towards the acceptance of LGBT can be noticed, especialy among young people

The media  previously covered homosexuality in very negative terms. Various myths emerged, associating homosexuality with criminality and pedophilia. However, in time, their attitude evolved on a positive trend, up to including various articles of a neutral or even sympathetic tone. For more information, please see “Homosexuality in the Written Media in Romania” by Antonia Creteanu and Adrian Coman, 1998.

The Orthodox Church has been campaigning aggressively and publicly against same-sex relations and the repeal of the anti-gay laws, exercising an enormous influence over the members of Parliament, Government, and on the general public. Its position is increasingly supported by other denominations, such as neo-protestant churches represented in Romania.

Thanks to this project, ACCEPT proved to be the element that was missing in Romania, where discussions about homosexuality took place in the absence of homosexuals.