Unpleasant events also happened during the Lithuanian Gay League protest

LGL participants gathered at the protest carried various banners: “We are people, not an ideology”, “Is the law of equal opportunities valid in schools?”, “A school without bullying and hatred”, “Protection of minors or discrimination?”, “Human rights – no LGBT Ideology”.

“We want to ask the Seimas and the Government to do everything possible to remove this provision from the law. It is very simple, but also complicated. Because of this, we want to support the initiative of the Minister of Justice, we wish her success and we are on her side,” V. Simonko told journalists before the protest, emphasizing that it is precisely because of this provision that LGBT organizations enter schools or communicate with schoolchildren about LGBT life.

“Because teachers de facto mention that it’s negative information, they’re afraid to talk about it because then parents get involved and schools feel that pressure.” It is the presence of this attitude that harms all of us, especially children. And don’t forget that among these children there are also LGBT children – they are, (…) people are born like this. And if we don’t support our children, then what are we worth?” asked V. Simonko.
He noted that during a recent study conducted by LGL, it was noticed that the well-being of schoolchildren belonging to the LGBT community is deteriorating.

“We recently conducted a study in which more than 1,000 LGBT schoolchildren participated. This is a study that we have been comparing since 2017 and we can clearly see that the situation is getting worse. This shows that if we continue to do nothing with our student community, we can make the situation worse and LGBT students will feel unsafe,” V. Simonko said.

Therefore, according to him, the provisions of the law prohibiting minors from providing information about LGBT communitiesthe existence of which also makes it more difficult for parents to recognize how to communicate with their children if they are homosexual.

“If they don’t get information from their child and don’t understand that he belongs to the LGBT community and needs help, this is already a stone against those families. Therefore, we also want to help families get to know their children and their orientation”, V. Simonko noted.

“I trust parents, they know their offspring much better than we do, and I fully understand that they themselves decide when to talk about it. But we have to talk about it. Because if we don’t talk about it, the church will talk about it, and we know what it is talking about. We know the religious lessons where it says that gays are cannibals – I won’t quote those words, you know that very well. That space is never empty,” said the LGL leader.

LGL were not alone at Independence Square. When the protest started, a group of people opposed to the protest appeared. They carried placards with the inscriptions “Pedophilia is not a law, but a crime”, “Why do they get to our children”, “Introduce a register of pedophiles”, “Children are not objects of sex” and said that the desire of LGBT organizations for children to know about their activities is tendency to pedophilia.

The Vilnius County Chief Police Commissariat informed on Thursday evening that in assessing the incidents recorded during today’s meeting outside the Seimas, the 3rd Police Commissariat of Vilnius County VPK has initiated administrative proceedings regarding the intentional destruction or damage of property, and actions regarding violation of public order are being assessed.

The video material will also be analyzed and together with the prosecutors, the issue of starting a pre-trial investigation regarding possible incitement to hatred will be resolved.

ELTA reminds that recently there has been a lot of discussion regarding the life skills lessons that have appeared in grades 5, 7 and 9 since September. At the beginning of September, a fake document spread on social networks, claiming that in the new lessons, students will be taught sexuality “according to the standards of LGBT ideology”.

At the beginning of September, President Gitanas Nausėda called for an assessment of whether there are currently enough teachers in Lithuania who can implement the new program. He suggested that if there are no educators to teach the subjects in the program, the start of life skills classes should be delayed.

At that time, the opposition factions of the Seimas registered a project last week, which proposes to delete the part of sexuality education from the life skills program and integrate it into moral education, so that parents can choose whether their child should study according to religion or according to a program adapted to ethics lessons.

However Lithuanian Student Union (LMS) supports the Life Skills Program. Addressing the president and members of the Seimas, it is emphasized that attempts to eliminate the topics of sexuality education are harmful to the proper education of children. Also, LMS notes, politicians should not stop the program, but think about how to implement it more efficiently.

“It was about the implementation of the ECtHR decision. But it is obvious that this is, first of all, a matter for the Government, the Ministry of Justice, so when such an initiative appears in the Seimas, it is natural that it will be considered,” V. Čmilytė-Nielsen told reporters in the Seimas.

The Speaker of the Seimas admitted that she believes that the MPs’ opinions on these amendments will differ.

“I have no doubt that opinions will differ in the Seimas. I tend to see this as a legal issue, that is, the implementation of the ECHR, but I have no doubt that there will be different opinions in the Seimas. I wouldn’t make a prediction now,” admitted the head of the parliament.

On her part, V. Simonko said after the meeting that the Speaker of the Seimas understands the expectations of the LGBT community.

“At this meeting, we emphasized that we support the initiative of the Ministry of Justice to submit amendments to the law on the protection of minors from negative information, which contain the provision that information about LGBT persons is equated with negative information,” V. Simonko told reporters.

However, the LGL leader admitted that after the conversation with the leader of the parliament, he understood that it would be difficult to get the necessary support in the Seimas for the amendments that would change the provision of the law on the negative impact on minors.

“The Speaker of the Seimas understands our expectations and we also understand that this initiative will not be easy, especially in the Seimas. This is what we understood and we see that there are now also different views in the coalition. We only showed that we support this initiative,” said the LGL leader.

“We understand that we all have to work a lot together and I hope that sooner or later Lithuania will become more beautiful and more similar to EU countries in terms of equal rights,” he also noted.