St. Echmiadzin against Armenian parliament’s gender law

The Mother See of Holy Echmiadzin is against the Armenian parliament’s gender equality law though it doesn’t explicitly voice its criticism.

His Eminence Bishop Bagrat Galstyan, who is a spokesperson at the cathedral, has posted a thorough article on his Facebook profile, describing the law as an erroneous and confusing document whose interpretation conflicts with the actual content.

He is concerned to note that the bill may undermine family values, violating children’s rights and contributing to the legalization of homosexualism. “The law is not about ensuring equal rights and equal opportunities between men and women - which is naturally acceptable and definitely encouraging - but about gender equality. These, as a matter of fact, are different concepts,” says the bishop.

The Law on Ensuring Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities between Men and Women received the parliament’s approval in May. A controversial provision in the document (elaborated by lawmakers of the Rule of Law party) was the one which definines gender as an acquired behavior. Several civic groups recently expressed concerns over the law, calling upon interested organizations, media representatives and individuals to join their efforts towards having the document revised.

In his article, Bishop Galstyan shares his ideas of gender, noting particularly that “… The term gender is not only a social and political but also a physiological concept, which never defines the sexual or biological perception of a man or woman, but rather characterizes the understanding of the feminine and masculine, considering it socially acquired and selective. Hence this perception bears absolutely no relationship to the equality of rights between men and women.”

The clergyman emphasizes that the principle of equality between men and women is among the central concepts of the Christian anthropological perception. According that concept, he says, God created the human being, not the individual, as a community of men and women and as the reflection of “its own Trinitarian community life, with equal rights and responsibilities but with different ways of expression and feelings.”

A video footage entitled The Sodomy Effects of Gender has been posted on Qahana.am, the official website of the Mother See’s Ararat diocese.