"The draft law on legal recognition of gender identity based on self-determination, which was prepared by the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights, is the beginning of an entire ideology of relativism that tries to cancel those values that are constructive and important for us, in a certain way," he said. to the program "Morning" of the First Television Archpriest-Stavrophor Dr. Boris B. Brajović, full professor of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Montenegro in Nikšić. He also pointed to the fact that the Draft caused certain reactions from the public and that the Metropolis of Montenegro and the Littoral also announced the announcement.
"Because today we live in a cancel culture, a cancellation culture. For the sake of political correctness, such large religious communities can be changed or excluded from any dialogue. and the essence of every dialogue is not to ignore each other, but to understand each other", said Fr. Boris, considering that arguments for or against this law should be presented on this important topic, expressing the hope that the discussion will still take place.
Professor Brajović points out two positions as problematic and important: the issue of sex and gender and states that in this law, Article 4, not all concepts are explained, and even when they are explained, it is done in the wrong way and he cited the key concept - gender as an example. In this sense, what was done by the famous feminist Judith Butler, a serious American philosopher, is to equate sex, which is a biological category, with gender, to say that sex and gender and male and female are fluid terms, they do not exist:
"So it is something that an ordinary person, and even an educated person, cannot understand. He cannot even understand that something that is natural, you have certain genitals, male, female... can be canceled by any story, theory. This law actually suggests that there is no difference between sex and gender, since they are fluid terms. So, as Judith Butler said in a lecture in Belgrade, they are phantasms - gender determinants are phantasms. It is something like when you say: This hill is a phantasm, I can't see it. But just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist."
He also raised the issue of minor children. Scotland lowered the age limit from 18 to 16 years, Germany to 14, and according to this law it is 15 years. In the opinion of the professor, the children are still in question.
"It is one problem that we as a religious community cannot agree to, that someone takes away our children for the sake of some kind of ideology. For us, male and female are cultural categories, with different gifts for each, both male and female. This is a question of freedom because only a free man can decide, a free man is a mature man, and these 15-year-olds are still adolescents. Social intelligence, psychological, sexual intelligence, these are all categories that develop at that age, and that is the age of transition when the adolescent separates from his parents, when rebellion is natural and we should leave it to our child who is still confused." , Archpriest Boris said among other things.
We as a religious community, as he pointed out, cannot accept that the idea of gender, which is natural, is translated into some construct of gender. Pointing out that it is important to have a dialogue and that every problem of a hidden minority, any minority, should receive the attention it deserves, that it should be problematized and reexamined, he underlined that there are many problems here and that it is important to have a dialogue about this and it must be a public hearing. According to him, this law must also be anti-discriminatory towards religious communities because God created male and female, and that is both a spiritual category and an allegorical category, because they are different gifts.
"We should teach our children that gender differences do not make them better or worse, that they are different gifts. In this care for children, we must never allow someone else to take care of them better than us parents, neither the state nor any laws. This law has the intention of taking away children from parents", concluded Archpriest-Stavrophor Dr. Boris B. Brajović in the program "Morning" of First Television.
Vesna Devic