The main reason why the European Forum started the Safe Space training project, was that we experienced a need for human rights workers to be able to challenge the arguments of conservative religious leaders and politicians who use religiously based arguments to fight against general human rights for LGBT people, such as:
- the right to assemble (for instance in Gay Pride parades)
- the right to protection through anti-discrimination laws
- the legal right to marry.
Within Churches, many people also use religiously based arguments to prevent lesbians and gays from working in the churches, from being ministers, and from having their marriages or partnerships blessed in the church. We saw the need to complement human rights knowledge with knowledge about how to read and interpret the Bible. Many conservative religious leaders and politicians do not listen to human rights language. They need to be met with religiously based counter argumentation.
The pilot training project resulted in a toolbox that can be used in further trainings. It will be available soon.
