wo online surveys from the same panel, conducted three weeks apart (snap parliamentary elections – 29 August 2015; Pride Parade – 17 September 2015), point to a similar social pattern: people are more willing to accept LGBT individuals “quietly” in private life than to support public recognition of rights, while distrust in institutions remains dominant.
In the Pride Parade survey (N≈144), a significant share of respondents report personal contact with LGBT people: 25.79% say they are friends with someone who is homosexual, 6.29% work with such a person, 6.29% are neighbours, and 5.66% mention a family member. At the same time, 25.79% say they do not know and do not want to meet such a person, while 10.69% do not know anyone but would like to.
The clearest gap appears between the belief that “homosexuality is an illness” and behaviour in close relationships. As many as 57.64% agree to some extent that homosexuality is a disease (from “completely” to “slightly”), while 37.5% reject this entirely. Yet when the question becomes personal, 61.81% say they would do nothing if their best friend were homosexual (“what matters is what kind of person they are”). Only 15.28% would recommend “medical help,” and 10.42% would reduce socializing. In other words, declared stigma is common, but it is often softened in real-life relationships.
The public sphere is a different story. Holding the Pride Parade in Belgrade is not supported by 62.5% of respondents; 18.06% support it, while 19.44% have no opinion. Open-ended answers are dominated by messages such as “there is no need for parading” and claims that the event is “politicised,” often accompanied by moral and religious justifications.
Perceived effects are largely viewed with scepticism: most respondents acknowledge that the topic has been opened up (58.34% say fully/mostly/partly), but 70.84% believe the Parade did not, or only minimally, reduce homophobia, and 73.61% say it did not reduce discrimination. Nearly half (49.3%) think the authorities showed little or no understanding.
The participants’ sociodemographic profile in the Pride survey (55.56% women; average age 35.3; median 32) and their self-assessed economic status (most often “3” – 43.06%) are quite similar to the elections survey, where the modal material-status rating was also “3” (46.36%).
In the elections survey, polarization was milder: 46.36% supported snap elections, 36.36% opposed them, and 17.27% were undecided. For Pride, the split is sharper (18.06% support versus 62.5% oppose), suggesting that cultural issues mobilize firmer positions.
That is why the tone of the Pride survey closely resembles the tone of the snap-elections survey (N≈110). There, 46.36% call for elections, yet 30.81% see the motive for calling them as extending the mandate. In both cases, respondents recognize the procedure (elections, public assembly) but doubt the outcome: neither a “vote” nor a “march” is seen as easily changing either the distribution of power or social norms.
Methodological note: Both surveys were conducted online on a self-selected sample of platform users; the findings are not representative of Serbia’s population. Percentages describe the views of survey participants, with multiple-choice questions in some items.