

On Sunday's morning of June 3, supporters of traditional family values, representatives of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, traditionalists, civic activists, members of nationalist organisations, conservative civic initiatives and ordinary families gathered at the St. Sophia square of Kyiv for a scheduled pro-family march. Afterwards, under the head slogan "Happy family - healthy Ukraine" the rally of about a dozen thousands participants - which was full of families with children - moved towards the Government Quarter through the capital center.





The traditionalist march's main goal was to draw the society's and the government's attention to the moral and spiritual foundations of institution of a family and marriage as a union of a man and a woman, and its essential role for harmonious upbringing and healthy growing of children. In addition, in their opinion, the need to increase the level of state family support policy remain actual in Ukraine.





"Today's procession is the finale of large-scale street actions in more than 50 cities of Ukraine. During May hundreds of thousands of citizens of Ukraine had been taken to the streets of their cities to remind that a family is an exclusively union between a man and a woman. In recent times we can observe attempts by some representatives of extreme-liberal forces to change the legislation in the way, which is not coincide with the interests of a Ukraine's natural family. Another treating thing is their attempts to introduce gender ideology into the school education program. However, considering banners on today's march we can see, among other, slogans as: "Gender ideology is not a science," "educational institutions are not for the propagation of gender ideology." What we relay need is to focus on resolving actual domestic problems of Ukrainian families, such as divorce, irresponsible paternity, family violence, drunkenness, demographic issues and improving the economic situation of families, rather than make new phenomenons, that are destructive for a family and a personality in particular," - said the march participant, a People's Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Pavlo Unguryan.





Another member of the pro-family action - Adrian Bukovinsky, an expert on family policy issues and coordinator of the All-Ukrainian and regional Family Forums, said: "Street actions are one of the ways of expressing the position of the Ukrainian community in matters of a family. Recently, we finished collection of signatures for a petition to the President of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine with the requirements to secure traditional family values. As of today, 40 councils of different levels - oblasts, cities, districts - that are representing more than 11 million Ukrainians voted to appeal to the country authorities with similar requirements, which we have expressed today. It is worth noting that among the list of requirements there is one to prohibit public propaganda of various types of deviant sexual behavior, including in the form of so-called equality marches, LGBT prides, gay parades, queer culture festivals, etc. The key concept behing such marches and parades is not the right for self-expression and peacefull assemble, but the legalization of anti-constitutional norms, in particular the recognition of same-sex marriages with the right to adopt children. Therefore, today's event is a requirement not to encroach on a Ukrainian family and stop attempts to interfere in the consciousness of children with various ideological gender visions."



