Here come the clergymen

Yesterday the members of the “Say no to gender perversion” initiative organized a protest in Yerevan. They marched to the government building and submitted a letter to the government. This initiative is against the newly elaborated bill on the equality of men and women, which caused so much noise. After this noise, some of the provisions of the law were revised. It is a big topic of discussion to understand to what extent this law creates perversion and whether it is worth so much noise. Yesterday’s protest was interesting because besides the core members of the initiative, such as Khachik Stamboltsyan, a number of clergymen also took part. It is normal that the clergymen can also be concerned about perversion. It would have been normal if the clergymen showed excessive interest towards various aspects of human rights violations. But the clergymen have been inaudible for years in regard to physical and mental pressures to citizens. There can be only a few cases when the clergymen went out on the streets to protest. During the post-March 1 actions of the 2008 presidential elections when 10 people were killed no clergymen ever went out to protest.

They also stay inaudible when criminals are released from jails and when high-rank clergymen appear in the center of various scandals. Those are dangerous themes and the uprising of the clergymen may be misconstrued by the government. It is not ruled out that our clergymen have decided not to lag behind from their orthodox counterparts. The latter organized protests against homosexuality in Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine.