Tbilisi: Shalva Papuashvili, the Speaker of Parliament of Georgia has signed the bill “Family Values and Protection of Minors.” Yesterday, the Georgian President refused to approve the bill as it proposed to ban the LGBT agenda.
Speaker on his official Facebook page stated, “As authorised by the Constitution, I am signing today’s bill “On Family Values and Protection of Minors” which was not signed by President Salome Zurabishvili.”
The speaker also added that it is sad to see that a leader of the stateless and devalued opposition who has become a lovable President refused to sign a law protecting the most valuable things for a person—family and children. From this refusal anti-people stand of President Salome Zurabishvili and stateless oppositionists becomes clearer.
I am signing the law based on common sense, historical experience and centuries-old Christian, Georgian and European values. I understand that signing this law will cause criticism from some foreign partners.
Still we Georgians have never been afraid of others’ assessments when our faith, common sense and loyalty to the country required us to make some hard decisions.
According to the Speaker the Law protects the rights of all citizens, including freedom of expression so that the rights of others are not violated, which is the essence and idea of true democracy.
Moreover tolerance was and will be a distinctive feature of the Georgian people. We must realize that tolerance means living together based on mutual respect, not living by violating civil peace and the rights of other people.
The law has significant public support. On May 17, 2024, about a million Georgian citizens took to the streets of Georgian cities; this was instead a public referendum in favour of this law.
The speaker further added that, in the process of its adoption we also had discussions with representatives of religious denominations, where both the Georgian Orthodox Church and other religious denominations expressed their full support for the spirit of this law. Notably before this the President has refused her assent to the foreign agent’s law.