Romania: Gender identity now a taboo subject
Romania's parliament has approved an amendment to the Education Act prohibiting schools, universities and other educational institutions from "spreading the theory of gender identity". At the beginning of June the parliament had already voted for an amendment stipulating that parents must give their approval for their children to attend sex education classes at school. Whether President Klaus Iohannis will sign the bill into law remains to be seen.
No progress without free thinking
Economist Cornel Bran sharply criticises the new law in Libertatea:
“To speak out against this parliamentary initiative you don't have to prescribe to any particular school of thought. You just have to want good universities that give the fruits of free thought back to society. The changes in the education law send out the signal that it is not possible to study at Romanian universities without restrictions. If they target gender studies now, they could target any field of medicine or biology tomorrow on the grounds that they don't conform to the research ethics of the local archpriest. With this step we say goodbye to any globally competitive research in science and technology.”
For once the parliamentarians are right
Journalist Catalin Pena, on the other hand, approves of the amendment in Evenimentul Zilei:
“The senators have changed the education laws so that in future references and comments on gender identity will be prohibited at Romanian schools and universities. This is a sign that as far as the laws that the Lord gave us are concerned, there are still enough ordinary people in parliament. Even if I often doubt that our parliamentarians are are in their right minds and fear the Lord, when they enact laws that are based solely on their interests and not those of the rest of the Romanian population.”