Counter-Petition Supporting LGBTQ+ Education Reaches 4.5k Signatures in Hours

On Friday 2 August 2024, a counter-petition opened for signatures in response to the previous proposal to exclude LGBTQ+ topics from educational programmes for students under eighteen.

The petition calling for the inclusion and strengthening of LGBTQ+ themes launched on Friday morning and reached the 4,500 signatures required for discussion by the Chamber of Deputies (Luxembourg’s parliament) on the same day at around 15:00 in the afternoon. The server was reportedly so overloaded with people signing the petition that many had to be patient and refresh the page before they could sign.

According to the petition, public education should not only teach fundamental academic skills but also ensure equal opportunities and help children become “responsible citizens who can form their own opinions [...] on personal and ethical issues”, including sexual orientation and gender identity, with respect for individual values and societal principles of living together.

The petition seeking to ban LGBTQ+ subjects from schools launched at the end July collected around 8,700 signatures and sparked much criticism and heated discussions. This counter-petition was a reaction to it, and at the moment this article was written, had already collected 8,134 signatures, a day after it was published online. As both petitions gathered more signatures than the threshold required for a public discussion, they may potentially be debated in the same session.