Last week an amendment suggesting that ‘propagation of homosexuality’ should be included in the Law on the Protection of Minors against Detrimental Effect of Public Information, was firmly put on the agenda in the Lithuanian parliament, the Seimas. The draft bill will be discussed and put to a vote sometime during the autumn session.

Though the exact definition of ‘homosexual propagation’ is still unclear, if the bill goes through, it is possible that films about homosexual relationships or websites of gay activist organizations would be banned.

The authors of the bill, a working group led by parliamentarian and chairman of the Committee on Education, Science and Culture Virginijus Domarkas, claim that ‘propagation’ of non-traditional relationships to minors is wrong because of the misleading effect it may have. It distorts and discourages family values, they maintain, which could “cause negative consequences for the physical, mental and, first and foremost, moral development of minors.” Rima Baškinė, head of the Seimas Commission for Family and Child Affairs emphasizes that the proposed law in no way contradicts previous anti-discrimination measures, as the bill is not intended to incur on the tolerance of homosexual and bisexual relationships. They just should not be ‘promoted’, she maintains.

We at the Lithuanian Gay League are not the only ones who are finding the suggestion and its motivation absurd. Margarita Jankauskaitė, project manager for the Centre of Equality Advancement and ambassador for the European Commission Campaign ‘For Diversity, Against Discrimination‘ claims that the proposed amendment is contradictory to the legislation, not to mention the values of the European Union. She also questions what it means to distort family values. According to statistics, 56% of the families in Lithuania falls apart, and one third of children are being born into unmarried families. “However, families do not fall apart because children are educated about divorce, but because people cannot live together“, she reasons. The idea of the traditional core family is far from as dominant as it used to be.

The Director of the Human Rights Monitoring Institute of Lithuania, Henrikas Mickevičius is also concerned by the content but also the apparent arbitrariness of the proposed law. “Who then will have the right to interpret the concepts of the family and family values?” he asks.

The sad fact that supporters of the new bill claim that it doesn’t contradict anti-discrimination laws, suggests that either the concept of ‘discrimination’ has been grossly misunderstood by some Lithuanian politicians, or there is a fundamentally undemocratic current running in the Lithuanian parliament. Either way, the recent development could result in a tragic step backwards for the development of Lithuanian democracy. We at the Lithuanian Gay League have written to the Lithuanian parliament, and have asked our allies in the European parliament to do the same. We are hoping that a joint European denunciation will influence Lithuanian politicians to realize just how unacceptable the proposed bill really is.