Over 100 NGOs, academicians call on president to veto family law

The NGOs and academicians say in their appeal to the president that the bill is aimed at “sorting” families, rather than strengthening them.

They also note that if Grybauskaitė signs it into law, state budget funds will be allocated to organizations associated with the Roman Catholic Church, the Lithuanian Centre for Human Rights (LCHR) is a non-governmental organization based in Vilnius, said in a press release.

According to the authors of the appeal, the law is based on gender complementarity, rather than on gender equality, which allows changing the existing system of family support in the country and discriminating against families where, for one reason or another, there is no complementarity between man and woman, such as single parent families, divorced mothers or fathers, widows and widowers, etc.

According to the preamble of the law, which was adopted by the parliament on October 19, “a family is formed by free will of man and woman to take on moral and legal duties characteristic of a family,” and “the complementarity of man and woman is the base of a family as the primary and inherent community and an environment for raising, development and education of children.”

The bill was registered during the previous tenure of the Seimas. Its initiators said that it had been drafted in response to the worsening demographic situation.