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Strasbourg condemns Lithuania for stopping the publication of a children's storybook with LGTBI characters and labeling it harmful

2023-01-26T00:39:05.970Z


The European Court of Human Rights maintains that works of children's literature with homosexual themes contribute to promoting respect for all sexual orientations


Writing stories for children with LGTBI characters does not harm minors in any way.

On the contrary, it contributes to promoting "equal and mutual respect for people of different sexual orientation", something that is "inherent" in the European Convention on Human Rights.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has been forceful this Monday in its first pronouncement on LGTBI-themed children's literature, regarding a decision by Lithuania to first stop the publication of a book of fairy tales with homosexual characters, and then allow its distribution, but under the warning that it was "potentially harmful" for children under 14 years of age.

As unanimously decided by the Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg-based court, Lithuania violated author Neringa Dangvydė Macatė's freedom of expression when it took action against the children's storybook

Heart of Amber

.

Partially funded by the Ministry of Culture and intended for children aged nine to ten, the play adapted traditional fairy tales to include characters from different ethnic groups or intellectual disabilities with the aim of addressing issues such as stigma,

bullying

, divorced families or emigration.

In addition, two of the six stories recounted same-sex relationships and marriages.

For the judges, the restrictions that were applied against the book, which limited its distribution, sought to "limit children's access to information that describes same-sex relationships as essentially equivalent to relationships between different-sex couples."

And this "has broad social implications," they warn in their ruling.

In this, they also say "firmly" convinced that restrictive measures such as those adopted by Lithuania with Macatė's book "demonstrate that the authorities have a preference for certain types of relationships and families over others, and that they see relationships between different sexes more socially acceptable and valuable than those of the same sex, which is why they contribute to continue the stigmatization of the latter”.

For this reason, they conclude, "these restrictions, however limited they may be in their scope or effects, are incompatible with the notions of equality, pluralism and tolerance inherent in a democratic society."

Heart of Amber

was published in December 2013 by the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences, but its distribution was halted in March 2014, after the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture received a complaint that it "encouraged perversions", therefore which ordered the Journalistic Ethics Inspection Office to investigate whether the work could be harmful to children.

At the same time, recalls the ECHR, eight Lithuanian deputies sent a letter to the university expressing the concern of family associations "about literature that seeks to instill in children the idea that same-sex marriage is a welcome phenomenon."

The Lithuanian Inspection Office concluded that two of the stories – which recounted homosexual relationships – contravened the Law on Minors, which considers that any information that “expresses disdain for family values” or “encourages a different concept of marriage and family creation than enshrined in the Constitution or the Civil Code" can have a negative effect on minors.

Therefore, he recommended that the book be labeled with an alert informing that it could be "harmful to children under 14 years of age", which is how the University republished it a year later.

deceased author

Following that decision, Macatė, an openly gay children's writer, filed a lawsuit that ended, in November 2019, in Strasbourg.

A few months later, in March 2020, the author passed away, but her mother decided to go ahead with the procedure, and now she has ended up agreeing with her daughter.

She alleged that not only her right to freedom of expression (Article 10 of the Convention) was violated, but also Article 14, which prohibits discrimination, since she considered that the measures taken against her book were solely due to the fact that it "contained a positive portrayal of same-sex relationships" and that underlying the restrictions placed on his work was prejudice against sexual minorities.

In their ruling, the 17 judges that make up the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR reject the argument of the Lithuanian government, which claims that it restricted the book to protect children from sexually explicit information.

As highlighted in their ruling, the magistrates "do not see how, according to the national courts and the [Lithuanian] Government, certain passages —such as the one in which a princess and a shoemaker's daughter fall asleep in each other's arms after their wedding— can be explicitly sexual." .

Nor were they convinced by Lithuania's argument that the book promoted same-sex families over others.

"On the contrary," they write, "the stories defend the respect and acceptance of all members of society in a fundamental aspect of their lives, such as a committed relationship."

The TDH ruling obliges Lithuania to pay 12,000 euros for non-pecuniary damages to the author's mother, as well as another 5,000 euros for legal costs.

In an additional opinion, five of the judges regret that the ruling does not go further yet and addresses what they consider the substance of the matter: homophobic prejudices.

“We believe that this case provided the Court with an invaluable opportunity – which has unfortunately been lost – to address one of the ways in which homophobic bias often manifests itself today, and to clarify how to deal with cases where action is taken discriminatory against a specific content, instead of only against its author”, write the judges, who recall that, in 2021, the ECtHR declared inadmissible basically for reasons of form another highly mediated case of LGTBI discrimination: the lawsuit against a British pastry shop for refuse to make a cake with a gay slogan.

“The time has come for the jurisprudence of the ECtHR to evolve to include pro-LGTBI opinions

per se

in the field of protection from discrimination", claim these magistrates, for whom Strasbourg "should explicitly recognize that measures that seek to restrict the dissemination of pro-LGTBI information or ideas constitute discrimination against their authors or publishers, without the need to demonstrate that the plaintiffs' sexual orientation is also a factor."

Cases such as that of the pastry shop or, now, that of the author of children's books “may be indicative that more cases will reach the ECHR on measures that seek to restrict the dissemination of pro-LGTBI content in the future.

We hope that when considering the next case, the court will take a more courageous direction and duly recognize such measures as the discrimination that they are."

Source: elparis

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