Macedonia's Top University Classes Gays as Deviants

Macedonia's main Sts Cyril and Methodius University has decided to establish a new "Institute for Family Studies" that will teach courses such as “Family Values and Morality”, “ Family and Social Deviations”, “Family and Religion” and “Family in Antiquity”.

The course named “Family and Social Deviations” aims to introduce students to
“social deviations and the modern family.... focusing on gaining knowledge of socio-pathological problems (alcoholism, drug addiction, divorce, hazardous games, murders, suicide, corruption, homosexuality) and the role of the family in preventing and suppressing social deviations”, the course material says.

Several rights groups, including the Women's Alliance, have condemned what they call the “discriminatory approach” used in the studies.

The Women's Alliance said that describing divorce as a problem was "a direct attack on the right of free will... guaranteed by international law and Macedonian Law on the Family”.

It reminded the creators of the curriculum and the university that the World Health Organization, WHO, ceased to classify homosexuality as a disease in 1990.

“Any moves against this decision is direct discrimination and a breach of international agreements on human rights that our country has ratified, as well as of the domestic anti-discrimination law,” the Women's Alliance said.

The former head of the Macedonian Helsinki Committe for Human Rights, Mirjana Najcevska, a member of the international federation of lawyers against gender discrimination, slated the description of divorce as a socio-pathological problem.

“The day is near when divorce will become a criminal act”, Najcevska warned, adding that “societies that...