Bulgaria’s Parliament adopted a law which prohibits propaganda for non-traditional sexual orientation in schools

After more than 4 hours of debate and violent scandals, Bulgaria’s Parliament on August 7 voted to adopt law changes which prohibit propaganda for non-traditional sexual orientation in schools.

The proposal for changes to the Law for Pre-School and School Education was tabled by “Vazrazhdane” party.

The changes prohibit “propaganda, promotion and encouragement, directly or indirectly, of ideas and views connected to non-traditional sexual orientation or to definition of gender identity different from the biological”.

The changes to the law were supported at first and second reading by GERB-UDF, Vazrazhdane, Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), There is Such a People, BSP for Bulgaria. Some 20 MPs from “We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria” and 2 MPs from GERB-UDF voted against. Ten MPs from WCC-DB and three from GERB-UDF abstained.

Here is part of the debate in the chamber:

Kostadin Kostadinov - "Vazrazhdane". We have a problem and it is a big problem. Now we are going to nip it in the bud so that no one, no way, can ever try to do what they do to children in other countries because it is not humane and it is anti-human to promote non-traditional sex education in schools. It is an anti-human ideology. And with this little text in the law we will bury and nip this ideology in the bud.

Yavor Bozhankov, WE Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria: "This bill you are proposing is nothing but pre-electoral populism, ugly homophobia and ugly division in society. Our Parliamentary Group will remain a defender of the parliamentary practice that bills should not be passed in this way. Do not fall victim to the pro-Russian "Vazrazhdane".

Yordan Tsonev, MRF: "The MRF parliamentary group will support the proposed bill. This is an important part of children's education and we cannot remain indifferent on this topic. The biggest reason to support it is that a large part of the Bulgarian people share this opinion about the education of our children. We share the motives of those who tabled the proposed change, which is also based on a text from the Constitution, which says that marriage is a voluntary union between a man and a woman. I want to address something else.

Traditional religions are conservative on this topic, because the foundations of the human species are based on the family, marriage between a man and a woman and the continuation of the human species are based on that. And to be clear, there is no place for this type of education in our schools and it has nothing to do with tolerance of the different. Children are something else. They should be left to develop according to God's laws."

Kornelia Ninova, "BSP for Bulgaria". “I probably won't surprise anyone with what I'm going to say, because I've been repeating it for 7 years. I have repeated two sentences, probably more than 100 times, and they are: Do not touch the children! Hands down from the Bulgarian children!

It all started in 2017 with GERB's attempt to ratify the Istanbul Convention. I am proud that BSP stopped the ratification of this convention. It turned out that we were right, because later the Constitutional Court, the Bulgarian Church and the Mufti's Office all were against it. We are convinced that, apart from man and woman, there cannot be a third social gender. In 7 years we have reached 48 different forms of gender, apart from male and female. This is a perversion,“ Ninova pointed out.

Andrei Chorbanov, “There is Such a People: "Mrs Speaker, before I speak, let me ask if it is discriminatory to declare a conflict of interest. I define myself as a heterosexual man and I observe traditional values. I am a specialist in gene and cell engineering and have a wonderful idea of what gender is. And I am an orthodox Christian and that defines the position I will defend.

We are tolerant as a society, and I don't believe that we discriminate against people with non-traditional sexual understandings. We are strongly in favour of the fact that there can be nothing that can be propagated in schools."

Krasimir Valchev, GERB-UDF: "In the committee we supported this bill not because we are not Europeans, not because we tolerate Putin, but because this is our understanding of what kind of society we should live in. And we believe that our children should not be subject to such influences. I think our children will live in a better society in 30 years if we do not allow such influences in the school environment now.

The bigger issue, though, is what kind of education system to make so that children become better people, and this is one small step in that direction. One of the things is to include the subject of "religion" in the curriculum, with the option that who does not want religion to have an alternative class in ethics and education. Almost all EU countries have it."

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