38,000 signatures against immoral homosexual ‘marriage’ delivered to Estonian parliament
An Estonian pro-family organization delivered over 38,000 signatures opposing same-sex "marriage" to the country's parliament last week.
Spokesman for the Estonian Foundation for Defense of Family and Tradition, Slawomir Olejniczak, told LifeSiteNews that the petition campaign was the largest and most successful collection of signatures ever carried out in the country of 580,000 households against a proposed change of law.
Petition envelope: "Family = "
Olejniczak said that despite a blackout of coverage about the petition by the nation's government media, "the petitions were delivered to all households and 6.5% of the population reacted in favor of natural marriage in such a liberal country like Estonia."
"The National Broadcasting Union (ERR) completely boycotted covering our petition - I mean totally, - but it has now published a small news article in its English language based portal, which is meant to give information to foreigners about Estonia," said Olejniczak.
The Estonian public broadcaster noted in its article that under Estonian law, "same-sex couples have no right to wed. The situation is unlikely to change before the next parliamentary elections in 2015 as the two coalition partners are at odds over gay rights."
The ERR report cited a study conducted by Turu-uuringute AS last September which found that 60 percent of Estonians are opposed to same-sex "marriage."
“We should be working hard to restore the moral traditions that are the foundations of our culture, and a culture centered on the family, which is grounded on those traditions - otherwise, our culture and people will decay,” Varro Vooglaid, who heads the Estonian Foundation for Defense of Family and Tradition, told the Delfi news service last week after delivering the petitions.
Estonia is one of the many Soviet satellite states that found independence after the collapse of communism. It is suffering from a “confused” social and moral state, said the founder of the pro-life organization, the Institute for the Culture of Life, in the capital Tallinn.
"Estonia is a micro-experiment in Europe’s extreme secularization, and is reaping the demographic consequences," said Maria Madise, pointing out that Estonia’s economic prosperity has had the adverse effect of eating away at the social fabric by rampant divorce, abortion and suicide.
"What Estonian general moral and social attitudes are reluctant to adopt – but hopefully will eventually – is that the remedy for the past lies not in hedonistic indulgences, that are inducing now another sort of deadly culture, but in rediscovering the faith and re-establishing the institution of the family. Only a return to its Christian roots will save this heavily secularized country," said Madise.
A short video of the presentation of the Estonian Foundation for Defense of Family and Tradition pro-family petitions to the Chief of the Parliament on May 14th may be seen here.
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