Traditional and aimed family image in Lithuania

Written by the Siauliai group

WEDNESDAY, 24th April

When our erasmus group visited the Family Center of Vilnius Archdiocese, we found out about family from a Catholic perspective. Traditionally, lithuanians' consider a family to be a man, a woman and a few children, homosexual marriages are prohibited. They consider a marriage to be true when it's fulfilled in a church. When getting married in a church you not only need to be of different sexes, but you also need to be baptised and vouch to having children in the near future.

Whereas, when we had a discussion with T. Raskevičius, a member of the Lithuanian parlament, we got informed about his own perspective view of how it is to be a homosexual in modern Lithuania and the difficulties he went through under his political carrer. During his speech he informed us that his method to get attention is to shock people, for example, during his voting campaign he wore drag and with that gained fame. That's how he proves that no matter how you dress or present yourself you still have the right to be supported. His aim is to make Lithuania a more open and accepting place, so everyone can feel safe and equal. He showed us that out of 27 EU countries 5 still haven't legalized homosexual marriage and Lithuania is one of them - he wishes that Lithuania will not be the last.

Therefore, there is a huge difference between the traditional and aimed family image in Lithuania. A lot of people see the traditional point of view as old-fashioned and slowly the aimed family image is becoming more and more popular amongst the citizens.