A teaching method “promoting homosexuality” will not reach Lithuanian children
Latvian children’s books that caused parents’ outrage in that country will not reach Lithuanian children. The booklets, meant for kindergarten-age children, called “The Day when Ruth was Richard” and “The Day when Karlis was Karlina”, tell the stories of a girl who woke up one day being a boy and a boy who woke up being a girl, delfi.lt reported on 5 November referring to the LNK News.
The teachers were allegedly urged to organize children’s games where the girls were encouraged to dress up as boys and the boys as girls.
The parents in Lithuania, too, reportedly protested against publishing the books.
“The gender is not some kind of attribute that needs to be levelled or deleted. We are not sexless beings. The gender is a part of our identity and it is important that the girls and boys be encouraged to identify, to express their femininity or masculinity and to interact with the people of the other gender, not some sexless beings”, psychologist Algirdas Petronis said.
The creators of the education curriculum argued that the program is not designed to turn boys into girls and vice versa but to educate them on the equal possibilities of men and women.
“We are talking about granting both the girls and boys the possibility to develop in a multifaceted way. If a girl wants to play with a toy-car, let her do it, and if she refuses to, there’s no need apply pressure. If a boy likes some kind of activity, then he should engage in it”, the Director of Women’s Information Centre Jurate Seduikiene said, expressing her opinion.
However, the concerned parents say that the children who wish to be of the opposite sex can be cured. “Under that program, we should say that “everything is good” and accept it as a norm. Yet our position says that assistance is the most powerful and efficient for the children of this age rather than later, when all of that turns into homosexual orientation for the majority of such children”, spokeswoman for the National Association of Families and Parents Vita Kuliaviene said.
It has been decided to include Lithuanian scientists into the development of programs that
promote gender equality. The methods applied in other countries did not gain ground in Lithuania as they often confuse equal opportunities with sexual orientation.
Several years ago, a scandal arose because of the “Gender Loops” program which was meant to be applied in kindergartens. The defenders of the program argued that it promoted tolerance, while the critics accused it of promoting homosexuality.
Translated by Rimantas Kleiva
source: The Lithuania Tribune
