Prague, Dec 27 (CTK) – The nine Czech presidential candidates have considerably different views of the adoption of children by homosexuals – only a few of them clearly support this, while others may allow it under certain conditions or reject it completely, they have said in a CTK poll.
Only incumbent President Milos Zeman, who will seek re-election in January, did not answer the poll questions.
Defence and Security Industry Association President Jiri Hynek, running for the Realists marginal party, and musician Petr Hannig, head of the marginal Reasonable party, are clearly opposed to child adoptions by homosexuals.
“I was raised in the traditions of the 1000-year culture of Christian Europe where a family was a father, a mother and children,” Hannig said.
Former ambassador to France Pavel Fischer does not support such a change either, saying the current law was sufficient. However, he will see to it no one is persecuted for sexual or political orientation, he added.
On the contrary, physician and activist Marek Hilser would enable adoptions by homosexual couples primarily to help abandoned children. It is better for them than to stay in children’s homes, he added. However, he would prefer heterosexual couples on the waiting lists for adoptions.
Businessman and lyricist Michal Horacek is also for homosexuals to be allowed to adopt children as many of them can provide a much better home and care than institutions.
“This is why I am carefully for this. Nevertheless, as a Catholic I consider a traditional family a priority and I respect it,” he said.
Former Science Academy chairman Jiri Drahos said a child’s interests would be secured best in a traditional family of a a man and a woman. He, however, admitted that an adoption by a homosexual couple might be better for a child than other solutions in some situations.
“In the case of submitting a bill on adoption by homosexual couples, I would consider its particular content and parametres crucial,” Drahos said, adding that he would consult experts on such a bill and would be pondering it for long.
Former Civic Democrat (ODS) chairman and ex-PM Mirek Topolanek said he had always supported the right of homosexual couples to legally inherit property from the other partner and get information on the partner’s health condition.
“But I did not agree with anything else but a traditional concept of a mother, a father and children to be codified as a full family, or with new standards being supported,” he added.
Skoda Auto former board chairman Vratislav Kulhanek did not express his stance on homosexual adoptions in his response. He only said this issue can polarise society.
Zeman, who did not answer the poll question, backed the possibility of adoption of children by same-sex couples before the previous presidential election in 2013. But heterosexual couples should be preferred as adoptive parents, he said.
