Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Homophobia still strong in Romania

Romania joined the EU in 2007. While the country sees EU integration as mainly an economic benefit, membership also brings cultural changes.

Romania’s stance on homosexuality reveals a tension, between the Orthodox Christian values, and the EU values of tolerance.

Bucharest, the capital, has only two gay-friendly places- a club, and here, the Soho lounge- a café/bar in the old city center.

The owner, 35-year-old Horatio Birka, gives a tour

Inside, the lights are dimmed. It’s a modern space, with black and white photos on the wall. Birka opened the bar in December, and it quickly became so popular he took over the basement area and turned it into a club.

Soho lounge does not have a rainbow flag out front, or any outward indication it’s a gay bar.

"It’s because uh- the mentality in Romania- people don’t want to be cast of going into a gay place. It’s my style. I don’t feel the need to share with everybody that I’m gay"

Romania is the most homophobic country in the EU, according to some EU studies. The 2008 Eurobarometer survey of public opinion asked Romanians how comfortable they were having a homosexual person as a neighbor, on a scale of 1 to 10. Where the EU average was 7.9, Romania averaged 4.8, the lowest in the Union.

As a result, few people are comfortable being openly gay. Florentina Bocioc is the executive director of Accept, a human rights NGO that works on LGBT rights in Romania.

"It’s not an easy life. Most of the people they adapt by being invisible as gay people. I think its better than in other countries, where they are in real risk of being sent to jail or killed, but it’s not a free life."

Homosexuality was illegal in Romania until 2002. Bocic says the country had to decriminalize it in order to join the Council of Europe. Joining the EU in 2007 pushed the country to adopt anti-discrimination laws. Again, reluctantly.

"It’s a high level of intolerance in society. I think first it comes from the education that we received during communism. Because when I was a child, you look on the newspaper and see news about rape and crimes, it was also a news about homosexual who was imprisoned. So it is this association with homosexuality with crime, and especially with sexual crimes"

"Of course, we are much more tolerant than we used to be 20 years ago."

That’s Horatio Birka again. He complains the image of gay people is all wrong in the media here. Too many stereotypes - drag queens, and transvestites. But he is cautiously optimistic that things might be changing.

"A lot of straight people… come here, people from the entrance they explain that’s a gay bar, they don't really mind, and they mix to the crowd and don’t mind. To me that’s a good sign, in improving the image of the gay community- uh, slowly. Takes years, but we have to be patient."

In Bucharest, Romania, I'm Sarah Elzas