By Hilary White

VILNIUS, November 17, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Following violence at last May’s Gay Pride parade in Vilnius, the Lithuanian parliament is considering passage of a law that would prohibit further homosexualist demonstrations.

The draft law proposes to levy fines between 2,000 to 10,000 litas for “publicly promoting homosexual relations.” At first reading on Friday, it received 31 votes in favor and seven against, with the majority of 141 legislators abstaining, according to The Baltic Course.

A second vote is expected in December, reported the online magazine.

Petras Grazulis, a member of the Order and Justice party and the legislator who tabled the bill told media, “Any evil cannot be propagated. Such events like gay parades do great harm to children.”

“There would be no more permits for various gay parades, no tensions for the society,” he said, calling homosexuality a “social perversion.”

Clashes last spring between homosexualists and anti-gay demonstrators resulted in 12 arrests, with police resorting to tear gas as fights broke out between demonstrators on both sides after the event was allowed to go forward by Vilnius city council.

The clash prompted Lithuanian legislators to present the bill to ban future events.

In March, the Lithuanian Reform Movement, a pro-family group, sent an open letter addressed to lawmakers and the mayor of the city of Vilnius condemning the approval. The group said it opposed the “aggressive policies to promote homosexuality and its ideology” that the European Union promotes: “We need neither officials of the EU Committee – the intercessors of the homosexuals – nor meetings of any members of sexual minorities in Lithuania.”

Lithuania, which joined the European Union in 2004, has so far resisted pressure from the EU and international homosexualist lobby groups to legalize either “gay marriage” or same-sex civil partnerships, although homosexual activity was decriminalized in 1993. In June last year pro-family lobbyists succeeded in passing a law prohibiting homosexualist propaganda in schools, to much protest from the EU.