AUCCRO admonishes authorities against denigrating family values ​​in the new Constitution

The All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (AUCCRO) appealed once again to the President, the Constitutional Commission and the Parliament explaining its position on the defense of traditional family values.

The appeal sent was signed by the AUCCRO Chairman, head of the Seventh Day Adventist Church Viktor Alekseenko, the Institute of Religious Freedomreports.

According to religious leaders, the new wording of the provisions on human rights and freedoms put forward by the Constitutional Commission“posesserious threats to the family institution in Ukraine, the marriage relationship as a union of man and woman that is traditional for the Ukrainian society, and forms the basis for legalization of same-sex partnerships that are unacceptable moral health of society and its natural development. In particular, introducing the concept of “genetic characteristics”into the article on the prohibition of discrimination is unacceptable to the moral health and natural development of the society.”

We refer to articles 28 and 42 of the draft Constitution of Ukraine, adopted in the wording of the Working Group of the Constitutional Commissionon the rights, freedoms and duties of man and citizen.

According to the AUCCRO, “justifying such dubious proposals by reference to European experience is irrelevant, because the European Union have opposing views on the issue of anti-discrimination legislation, marriage and family, legal opportunities for sexual minorities.”

In their appeals, the AUCCRO emphasizes the need to incorporate in one or another way the principles of identity and principles of human relations, which are traditional for Ukrainian citizens, as reflected in the proposals of the AUCCRO to the Constitution of Ukraine.

“The All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and religious organizations admonishes both the Constitutional Commission members and the MPs of Ukraine against adoption of the above constitutional provisions, which threaten to plunge the Ukrainian state into the abyss of immorality, sin, destruction of family as the basic social institution and popularize the relationshipbetween persons of the same sex, which are unnatural for human beings,”reads the AUCCRO appeal to the authorities.

To discuss these and other issues, the AUCCRO reached out to the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko with a request of a personal meeting with the heads of churches and religious associations.

Speaking about the constitutional process, assistant professor of constitutional law department at Ivan FrankoLviv National University, founder of the Center for constitutional initiatives Sergei Reznikbelieves it to be a wrong approach when common problematic issues of justice and human rights have been mistakenly taken for priority in the establishment of the Constitutional Commission.

“Obviously, both justice and human rights suffer primarily not from the problems related to the text of the Constitution,but from corruption and lack of political will, which should be counteredat a completely different level, and no changes to the constitution may essentially affect them,”the scholar stressed.

In March 2015, the President of Ukraine set up the Constitutional Commission and entrusted it with the task to ensure broad public and professional debate on proposals for the constitutional reform in Ukraine.

In June 2015, the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations joined the constitutional reform process and formulated its proposals to the Constitution of Ukraine.