"I proudly announce I am gay... Good luck all of you," he said late yesterday in a tweet that has since gone viral.
"Our country must create a legal framework for all types of partnerships, I will fight for it, I know that there will immediately be mega-hysteria but #Proudtobegay", he had tweeted moments earlier in Latvian, followed by the English-language hashtag.
Rinkevics, 41, had been the object of whispering campaigns regarding his sexuality, most recently during the run up to October's parliamentary elections.
Latvia is one of three Baltic states including Lithuania and Estonia that joined the European Union in 2004 after breaking free from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1990-91.
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