Center for Civil and Human Rights, Face Reality

Billboards in 20 places across Macedonia showed gay men holding each other and women in suggestive poses under the title "Face Reality" -- along with the seal of the U.S. Embassy in Skopje.

The State Department gave the center more than $20,000 for legal aid and counseling for victims of discrimination in August 2002.

However, Susan Pittman of the State Department said it was a mistake "The Center for Civil and Human Rights is a Macedonia non-governmental organization (that) inappropriately used the seal of the U.S. embassy on a number of billboards as well as posters and brochures, the contents of which were not reviewed or approved by the United States," she said. "The billboards have since been taken down."

Homosexuality was illegal in Macedonia until 1996, but as a condition of entry into the Council of Europe, Macedonia was obligated to change those restrictive articles.

In 2002, the Helsinki Committee and the Open Society Foundation of Macedonia conducted a survey of attitudes toward homosexuality. According to the poll, some 64 percent of Macedonians believe that homosexuality is a disease, with only 19 percent saying it is not and the rest “uncertain.” Some 60 percent also said they believed homosexuality to be “immoral.” Only around 20 percent said they would accept the homosexuality of a family member.