Zagreb, (IKA) – For the first time in Croatia’s twenty years of independence Catholics have taken to the streets to peacefully demonstrate against Christianfobia in front of the Zagreb County Court.
A Lesbian activist group called Kontra filed a law suit against a religious education primary teacher Jelena Mudrovcic for allegedly having said that “homosexuality is a sickness” during a year 8 religious education class. The teacher denies the allegations and emphasises that she spoke in line with what is written in the official RE text book. Religious education classes are allowed in Croatia’s public school system as an elective subject.
The pupil who allegedly heard such allegations was not officially enrolled in the RE class, but relayed to her mother a muddled version of the Catholic Church’s official teachings on homosexuality as stipulated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and repeated in the official RE text book. The mother, Marina Vukusic then ‘reported’ the allegations to the Lesbian group, who in turn brought about the private law suit, using for the first time the contentious Law on Anti- Discrimination. The said law when being enacted a couple of years ago was criticized by the Catholic Church in Croatia as a first step in suppressing religious freedom and opening the door to future possible changes in the Family Law. Legal experts say the current case against the RE teacher has little grounds of success for the Kontra group.
Meanwhile both Vukusic and the Kontra group have stated publicly that they are against RE in public schools and the Church’s teachings about homosexuality. They added that they would do everything in their power to see such sought after changes take place. To this end the first court session last year was used as a public relations spin by the Kontra group, who received full media coverage with little or no coverage for the accused Catholic side. The RE teacher, Catholics in general and Catholic moral teachings were publicly ridiculed.
The court case on Monday, 7/3/2011, marked a milestone in Catholic public activity and was in stark contrast to the first session. A couple hundred Catholic demonstrators peacefully stood in front of the court with various slogans and their mouths bandaged with a sticker stating ‘Stop Christianofobia’, while others entered the court room to follow proceedings. The protest received full coverage in all media and Catholic representatives were given equal air time to voice their opinions. The main message given was that Catholics have a right to RE instructions and moral teachings, a right to publicly espouse them and that tolerance is not the exclusive domain of a select few in society to the detriment of others. Catholic civil society groups through Facebook pages that were formed will continue to closely watch this court case and other situations where Christianofobia is present and sadly on the rise.