(LifeSiteNews) — LGBT activists are seeking to stymie a pro-family bill making its way through the Kazakhstan Parliament.
Last month the Mäjilis, the lower chamber of Kazakhstan’s bi-cameral legislature, voted unanimously for a law banning “LGBT propaganda.” The measure seeks to prohibit the spread of “non-traditional sexual orientation” in public and online. The measure mirrors similar legislation passed in Russia, Slovakia and Hungary in recent years.
Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has previously denounced the rise of gender ideology. “For decades, so-called democratic moral values, including LGBT, were imposed on many countries,” he said during a speech to the National Congress in March.
“This was done by international non-governmental funds and organizations. And under this guise, international non-governmental funds grossly interfered in the internal affairs of many strange states,” he further remarked.
Kazakhstan is a majority Muslim country but, unlike Middle Eastern Islamic nations, does not rely on Sharia law; it is secular in governance. A former republic of the Soviet empire, Kazakhstan legalized homosexuality in the 1990s, though recent polls indicate that less than 10 percent of the population support same-sex “marriage.” Kazakh legislator Nurlan Auyesbaev has stated that LGBT propaganda is “an open threat not only to society but also to the country.”
Multiple left-wing organization have decried the bill, which still needs to pass the Senate, in hopes that they will discourage lawmakers from approving it.
Just over a half dozen international groups have spoken out against the measure, including the United Nations; Access Now, Civil Rights Defenders; Eurasian Coalition on Health, Rights, Gender and Sexual Diversity; Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights; Human Rights Watch; International Partnership for Human Rights; and Norwegian Helsinki Committee.
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While efforts to derail the bill are unlikely, a planned Senate discussion to amend the measure on December 4 was postponed. However, lawmakers are expected to take up the measure before year’s end. Both chambers of Kazakhstan’s Parliament are controlled by political parties broadly supportive of Tokayev’s agenda.
Multiple Eastern European countries have taken steps to solidify opposition to gender ideology in recent years. Slovakia has passed a constitutional amendment affirming two genders while restricting adoption to heterosexual couples. Hungary also recently amended its 2021 Child Protection Act, which bans LGBT ideology in schools and gender propaganda on primetime TV to now prohibit Pride demonstrations. Meanwhile, Russia has outlawed LGBT “propaganda” regardless of age, making its promotion punishable by fines. A 2022 measure that was signed into law expanded on a previously approved 2013 legislation.
Pro-family groups have long warned about the dangers of allowing LGBT ideology. Not only have Western countries increasingly indoctrinated children with transgenderism in schools but the normalization of the LGBT lifestyle via Pride parades, movies, drag queen story hours, and the like has resulted in the de-stigmatization of what was otherwise considered a psychological disorder throughout history.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a major new report last month warning about the dangers of so-called “gender-affirming care.” The newly released report found that there are “significant, long term, and too often ignored or inadequately tracked” harm that is done by “puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical operations.” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed the study’s findings while denouncing the medical establishment for “malpractice.”
“The American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics peddled the lie that chemical and surgical sex-rejecting procedures could be good for children,” he said in a statement. “They betrayed their oath to first do no harm, and their so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people. That is not medicine – it’s malpractice.”
In the United States, a growing number of hospitals and medical professionals have been scaling back treatments for children who are confused about their gender. The University of Michigan, Yale Medicine, Kaiser Permanente, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, UChicago Medicine, and Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C are just a few of the medical systems across the U.S. that have either eliminated or have begun limiting puberty blockers and other drugs for minors.
At present there are approximately 2.8 million Americans 13 years of age or older who identify as “transgender.” Generation Z has the highest among all generations of Americans, with roughly 7.6 percent identifying as “LGBTQ+.”
