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More than 100 personalities from the right and conservative sectors have signed the petition asking for conscientious objection for parents who do not want their children to attend the course on Education for Citizenship and Development. Among the signatories of the manifesto are the former President of the Republic Aníbal Cavaco Silva, former Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho and the Socialist deputy Sérgio Sousa Pinto.
The initiative arises after two students, aged 12 and 15, born in Vila Nova de Famalicão, have been ‘failed’ for not having attended, by parents’ decision, the Education for Citizenship and Development classes, where issues such as environmental education, communication, sexuality and gender equality are discussed.
The case dates from the 2018/2019 academic year, but this year, the Ministry of Education warned that students would have to make up all the backward classes, which, in practice, represents a setback of two school years (from 7. to 5 and from 9 to 7). The parents do not agree with the decision and have filed two lawsuits against the Ministry of Education, considering that the issues addressed by the issue in question are the educational responsibility of the families.
In the undersigned, the signatories defend, therefore, that public education policies in Portugal must respect “always scrupulously, in this case and in all other similar cases, the priority of the right and duty of mothers and fathers to to choose”. the type of education that should be given to their children ”, as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights expressly states”.
“In particular and in accordance with the Fundamental Law of the Portuguese Educational System, respect the conscientious objection of mothers and fathers regarding the frequency of the Education for Citizenship and Development subject, whose contents, in fact, are highly densified from the point of view of in view of the freedom of education in civic and moral matters, it cannot be imposed on the freedom of conscience ”, the petition reads.
In addition to Aníbal Cavaco Silva, Pedro Passos Coelho and Sérgio Sousa Pinto, the manifesto, launched by professors from the Universidad Católica Manuel Braga da Cruz and Mário Pinto, is also joined by Cardinal Dom Manuel Clemente, the former presidents of the CDS-PP Adriano Moreira and José Ribeiro e Castro, the former Ministers of Education David Justino and Maria do Carmo Seabra, the former Minister of Finance and CDS-PP activist António Bagão Félix, as well as the former Attorney General José Souto de Moura.
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