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Slovaquie

  • September 2019 : Politic Controversy about Adoptions by Homosexuals

By the beginning of September, the media published diverse statements by higher political state representatives on the adoption of children by homosexual couples. Robert Fico, chairman of the biggest ruling party (SMER), is persuaded that the possibility to adopt a child should only be given to married couples. He has announced a constitutional amendment that would supplement the adoption rules by the definition of marriage as ‘the union of a man and a woman’. Fico wants to prevent the adoption of children by homosexual couples in the future. Robert Fico opened the issue in mid-August. In a video published on Facebook, he announced it would be correct to take a paragraph from the Act on Family and make it into a constitutional definition of marriage and of who can adopt a child. Only married couples would have the option. ‘If we succeeded in doing this, we would exclude all the perversity about homosexuals being able to adopt children in the future. I cannot agree with this and this is also the view of the SMER party’, said Fico. Prime Minister, Peter Pellegrini, who is also one of the vice-chairmen of SMER, does not see the constitutional amendment so unequivocally. ‘I personally think that we have to discuss that, because this leads to a question, whether this is an urgent and sensitive topic, which we should devote ourselves to, or whether it would rather be used or misused for political fights,’ said the Prime Minister in a RTVS show called O 5 minút 12 (Five to twelve). He added that constitution should be amended only if there is strong pressure by the public, and that we still need to establish if such pressure is present. In order to amend the constitution, at least 90 votes by members of parliament are necessary. Therefore, legislators both from the coalition and from opposition parties would have to vote for the amendment. Views across the political spectrum vary. Fico would probably be supported by Andrej Danko’s SNS. In the same show, Danko said that ‘everyone has the right to his/her own sexuality, to express his/her own religion and nobody can be blamed for his/her skin colour’. He added, ‘but I believe that we have a legal problem here regarding the rights of a minor in for example the cohabitation of two men or two women’. Members of the third coalition party, Most-Híd, would probably not vote for such an intention. Most-Híd party assigns the right to adopt children to a woman and a man, but does not think that the ban should be included in the constitution. The chairman of SAS, Richard Sulík said, “SAS party agrees with such a proposition, we have never pressed for adoptions by homosexual couples and this is not in our programme. However, I consider it useless to open the constitution so populistically and add any other part to it.”

The Slovak President, Zuzana Čaputová, also commented on the possibility to anchor the ban of adoptions by same-sex couples into the constitution. She said “I see no reason for it,” and repeated her standpoint on this issue, that children should above all be raised in a family, preferably biological. “If this option is not available, then I think a man and a woman should serve as an example, if children are raised in such a union. Of course, in case they should be raised in institutional care, then, as I openly said many times, I believe, that kind-hearted parents – even of the same sex – are a better option for such a child.” Martin Macko, chairman of the initiative Inakosť (Otherness) has drawn attention to the fact that such proposal would not only interfere with LGBTI people. “This initiative that has sprung up is harmful to all, because if it was passed in a version as suggested by Robert Fico, then all individual adoptions, which take place and are, of course, in most cases used by heterosexuals, would be completely banned.” He considers Fico’s activity a pre-election strategy.

  • September 2013 : Catholic March for Life and change in constitution

On 22 September, Košice, the second biggest town in Slovakia, which was designated to be the European Capital of Culture for 2013, held a National March for Life attended by roughly 70 thousand participants mostly from Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic. This pro-life event organized by the Catholic Church approached the politicians with requests to prohibit abortions by constitutional amendment, preserve "respect for life from conception to natural death" and constitutional protection of traditional marriage between a man and a woman.

D 9 octobre 2018    AMiroslav Tížik

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