Refined antidiscrimination bill contains only cosmetic changes, Pro Ortodoxia

The Church does not want the Antidiscrimination Law to be passed as the organization of LGBT parades will be thus authorized. On the other hand, NGOs say the law does not provide for this as it refers only to tolerance, Info-Prim Neo reports. In the program “In Profunzime” on Pro TV channel, the leader of the organization “Pro Ortodoxia” Ghenadie Valuta said that the amendments made to the initial antidiscrimination bill are cosmetic. According to him, if this bill is adopted, the homosexuals and other sexual minorities will insist on staging parades. The representative of the Church also said that the government misleads society when it says that the law is necessary for obtaining a liberalized visa regime with the EU. Of the 42 countries that have a liberalized visa regime with the EU, only eight passed this law. “Our authorities do not want to negotiate. They were probably bought and accept everything they are told,” stated Ghenadie Valuta. The secretary of the National NGO Council Antonita Fonari said this bill promotes tolerance and teaches to accept everyone. “It is not a document about sex, as some say,” she stressed. The law does not say that the sexual minorities will have the right to organize parades. Sociologist Lilian Negura, who teaches at the University of Ottawa, said that the idea of the bill is to see if Moldova accepts the European values. “If we do not recognize these values, we cannot say that we want to form part of the EU and we cannot aspire to integrate into this society. The EU insists on this law in order to see if these values are important for us,” he stated. The Ministry of Justice last week announced that the improved form of the antidiscrimination bill was submitted to the competent institutions for approval.