Macedonia Party Women’s Wing Attacks Gay Marriage

There will be no homosexual marriages or adoption of children by same-sex couples while the centre-right VMRO DPMNE party governs in Macedonia, the head of the party’s Union of Women said on Sunday.

“Traditional family values must be preserved”, Kosana Nikolic Mazneva said in her speech marking the 12th anniversary of the Union. “Although only subtly and between the lines, homosexual marriages are being persistently promoted; marriage must remain a community between one man and one woman,” Mazneva complained.

“We must not allow homosexual couples to adopt children,” she added.
 
The celebration, dubbed “Right Values in the Right Hands”, was held in the presence of the Prime Minister and VMRO DPMNE head, Nikola Gruevski.

Last month several NGOs held a so-called Tolerance March in Skopje on which they urged the government to speed up adoption of an anti-discrimination law outlawing discrimination against gays and lesbians, among others.
 
Mazneva supported the government’s campaigns to encourage couples to have more children by offering them financial benefits. She also praised the introduction of attempts to introduce religious education classes in primary schools.
 
Both initiatives, recently instigated by VMRO DPMNE, have had troubles in been stopped so far by the constitutional court. Judges ruled that holding religious classes in state schools violated the secular character of the state.
 
It also annulled an amendment that would have applied childbirth benefits only in municipalities with low birth rates. The court said this was discriminatory against couples living in areas with higher birth rates.

Most areas with low birth rates are populated with the ethnic Macedonian majority while the Albanians inhabit the municipalities with higher birth rate.