Thursday, January 16

Turkey’s Erdogan launches ‘Year of the Family’ with an attack on the LGBTQ community

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched Turkey’s Year of the Family Monday by criticizing the LGBTQ community and announcing plans to increase the country’s birth rate.

Erdogan announced a number of financial initiatives to assist young families, citing the historical reality that a strong family creates a strong state.

The president went back to issues he has previously advocated against LGBTQ individuals, such as the idea that the LGBTQ movement is a part of an international plot to weaken Turkey.

Protecting our children and young people from dangerous trends and diabolical ideas is our shared duty. He told an audience in Ankara that neoliberal cultural trends are spreading throughout the world and transcending national boundaries. Additionally, they contribute to the growth of LGBT and other movements.

The family is the target of gender neutrality policies that employ LGBT people as a battering ram. Similar to the justifiable criticisms of Zionism, criticism of the LGBT community is instantly suppressed. Anyone who stands up for the family and the environment faces severe persecution.

Although the LGBTQ community is not well known in Turkey, in recent years it has become a primary focus of the government and its allies.

Since 2015, there has been a prohibition on Pride parades, and those who want to participate face police roadblocks and tear gas. Meanwhile, the state has supported anti-LGBTQ demonstrations in recent years.

Erdogan claimed that Turkey was bleeding blood due to the worrying slowdown in population growth, recalling his 2007 insistence that families have three or more children.

The president also cited increased divorce rates and people marrying later in life as reasons for concern. In 2015, Turkey’s yearly population growth rate was 2.53%; last year, it was 0.23%.

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If we don’t do what has to be done, the issue will become out of hand. He went on to say that population decline is unavoidable in such a setting.

Erdogan unveiled measures to counter the threat to the family, including interest-free loans for newlyweds, better financial allowances for parents of newborns, housing, counseling, and financial support to help new families, and free or inexpensive childcare.

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