Czech gays hide their sexuality, society does not tolerate it

Although Czech society looks like it is tolerant of gays, the reality is different. Tolerance of gays is the lowest in smaller towns. Detailed reports are in the June issue of the magazine, ČILICHILI, that Vodafone creates for its customers. The magazine staff, along with the operator, decided to promote tolerance toward gays with a symbolic offering of mobile services for free.

"I often like to boast how tolerant we are as a nation. In preparing the topic dedicated to homosexuality, it somewhat surprised us that the vast majority of Czech gays were really worried to speak out loud about their orientation. They allowed us to take a picture of them only when masked and were often unwilling to give even their initials. We think that is not enough just to note this reality. Therefore, we created a symbolic offer for all of our customers who support us in tolerance," says ČILICHILI magazine editor, Michal Schindler.

The June issue of ČILICHILI, entitled Ecce Homo, is dedicated to gays and lesbians. It includes, for example, an interview with Daniel Goris, who with his team, was preparing the first official Gay Pride Festival in Prague and said that our city is one of the five major gay cities in Europe.

All Vodafone customers who chose to show tolerance towards homosexuality obtained, as a symbolic reward, two days SMS to Vodafone for free. The possibilities of expressing tolerance are described here: http://www.cilichili.cz/vodafone/budte-tolerantni.shtml.

ČILICHILI magazine, published since 2004, currently has a print run of 125 000 copies a month and its online version is visited by around 100 000 readers per month. In the Golden Semicolon awards, both the print and web ČILICHILI versions win several awards every year and this year, the online version won even the regular commercial media competition for Magazine of the Year, where it was awarded the prize for 2010 Digital achievement.