Leaders of Churches and religious organizations of Ukraine are ready to join the development of State Family Policy, - AUCCRO resolution

Leaders of Churches and religious organizations emphasized that they are ready to join forces with state and local authorities in the practical implementation of the constitutional guarantee for state protection of the family, childhood, and parenthood.

According to spiritual leaders, the priorities of Ukrainian society should remain a full family, marriage as a union of women and men, respect for human dignity from conception to natural death, responsible parenthood.

Members of the AUCCRO strongly criticized gender ideology for devaluing the ideal of the family and the marriage union of a woman and a man.

The Resolution states:

1. Family, including the marriage of a woman and a man as the best center for the birth and upbringing of children, remains one of the greatest values of the Ukrainian state, despite the destructive criticism from individual politicians and public figures. This is confirmed not only by the Holy Scriptures and the experience of previous generations but also by the provisions of Article 51 of the Constitution of Ukraine and Article 5 of the Family Code of Ukraine.

2. Social experiments with legalizing arbitrary gender self-identification (as opposed to female and male sexes) and imposing unnatural phenomena on society as a norm (popularizing same-sex sexual orientation, denying the presence of femininity in women and masculinity in men as distinctive features, the movement in support of non-binary pronouns, etc.) as a result do not lead to inclusion, equality of rights and reduction of violence, but further divide and outrage society, marginalize and restrict the rights of the majority to protect the interests of the minority, deepen demographic the crisis in the country.

3. The imposition of gender ideology has negative consequences in the form of attempts to devalue the ideal of the family and the marriage union of a woman and a man, is accompanied by a purposeful restriction of freedom of expression and freedom of religion, resorts to tolerating hate speech against religious figures and supporters of traditional family values, encourages violent arbitrariness against participants in pro-family rallies and activists, and so on.

4. Instead, speaking in defense of the traditional family values of the Ukrainian people, we understand by these quite specific and achievable virtues that can unite the entire Ukrainian society and, in our opinion, should be defined as the tasks of state family policy, namely:

Equality in dignity and uniqueness and peculiarity of the vocation of men and women;
nurturing relationships with the ability to marry and accept the gift of giving birth to a new life;
respect for the dignity of every person;
protecting human life from conception to natural death;
family solidarity and mutual assistance of generations;
respect for parents and elders;
respect for the rights of the child;
inadmissibility of domestic violence and harassment, etc.

5. The sad statistics of divorces (especially in the first years of marriage relations), the incompleteness of the reform of boarding schools for orphans (instead of which family-type orphanages should operate), large-scale social orphanhood, the widespread phenomenon of domestic violence, etc. - all these further actualize the need for (1) a clear definition of state priorities in the field of family policy, (2) the formation of the Ministry of Family Affairs and overcoming the demographic crisis and (3) the approval of an appropriate state program with the necessary budget funding.

6. A full family, marriage as a union of a woman and a man, respect for the dignity of a person from conception to natural death, responsible motherhood and fatherhood should remain educational ideals in the educational process in state, municipal and private educational institutions.

7. Churches, religious organizations and pro-family public initiatives are ready to join forces with state and local government bodies in the practical implementation of the constitutional guarantee for state protection of the family, childhood, motherhood and fatherhood.

8. Only through joint efforts and on the basis of state and community partnership, including with the participation of religious organizations, our country will be able to create appropriate social conditions, infrastructure and educational campaigns to build strong and happy families and marriage relations, support motherhood and fatherhood in order to preserve every pregnancy and raise a new generation based on the principles of high morality and respect for the dignity of each person.