With Stockholm Pride Campaign, Sweden Continues Curating Controversy

Stockholm Pride, Sweden's national LGBT celebration taking place July 31-Aug. 4, is raising eyebrows with a colorful (to say the least) campaign.

Its 2012 "Time to Be Queer!" campaign is causing a stir from the far left corners of the LGBTQ (the Q is for Questioning) community to the rightest of Christian fundamentalists. A Honolulu-based Pride organization even accused the campaign of setting the gay movement back 20 years. 

"The campaign 'Time to be queer!" tries to convince heterosexuals to become LGBTQ with arguments that can be seen all over Stockholm on posters and on animated banners in the subway system and at the campaign sites: blihomo.nu, bliflata.nu, blibi.nu, bliqueer.nu, blitrans.nu, and blibog.nu," explains campaign manager Soliman Herrera Johansson to Out Traveler.

The organization used social media to solicit arguments on why one should be LGBTQ and then shared them, about 500 submissions in total, on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Two winners were picked each week and their arguments illustrated such as "#102 BECAUSE JESUS ALSO HAD TWO FATHERS" which was presented to the Swedish Church and will gifted to the Bishop of Stockholm when he marches in this year's Stockholm Pride Festival. 

"The goal is to highlight heteronormativity and the prejudices that exist about the LGBTQ community while showing the positive sides of being lesbian, bisexual, queer, transgender or gay," adds Johansson. (See more of the controversial ads here.)

Sweden is no stranger to controversy, recently seeing US latenight wag Stephen Colbert vying to become one of the citizen curators of the @sweden Twitter account and announcing “the Colbert Nation will cut off all diplomatic relations with Sweden” otherwise.