In 1999, Antero Laukkanen, assistant of the Finnish congressman Toimi Kankaanniemi (Christian party) passed a memo to the other members of the Eduskunta (Finnish parliament), in which he describes an International Gay Conspiracy. The parliament was at that time discussing whether ot not gay couples should be allowed to legalize their relationship. Apparently, this memo was supposed to "enlighten" other congressmen to "facts" on the subject so they could make the right decision.
In the memo, Laukkanen describes five tenets, which are supposed to guide gay people in converting others to their cause. He claims that the conspiracy has clear goals: general acceptance of homosexuality, alteration of the traditional Christian family values, and adoption rights for gay couples. These tenets were supposedly originally released in an American gay magazine Guide Magazine in 1987 (I wasn't able to locate the originals on their website, since everywhere I looked, I got a picture of a semi-nude male instead). Anyways, here is a rough translation of them from Finnish:
- Discuss about homosexuality and gays/lesbians as often as possible, as loud as possible, in every possible situation and in the media.
- Present homosexuals as victims of society, not as confident rebels.
- Make homosexuality an issue of human rights.
- Maintain an image of a "cool gay character", plan your marketing carefully.
- Present opposers as robbers of human rights, and as conservative religious fanatics.
I trust there is no need to point out the absurdities in Mr. Laukkanen's arguments...
It would even seem that Laukkanen wasn't the first one to make such claims. In 1998, the Finnish representative to the Eurovision song contest, Marika Krook, claimed that her loss was due to the very same International Gay Conspiracy (it should probably be noted in this context that Finland has traditionally had an abyssmally piss-poor success in the contest). The winner for that year was Dana International, the Israeli transsexual, with her song "Diva".