'Parent 1 and parent 2' goes to Parliament after backlash

There are strong reactions to the reference to Parent 1 and Parent 2 in the platform for registering children for the first year of primary school. The issue took on political dimensions after strong opposition from ELAM and DISY, resulting in the matter being referred to the Parliamentary Committee on Education following a recommendation from ELAM.

"Conspiracy theories"
Commenting on the criticisms, Education Minister Athena Michailidou told CNA that the reference to Parent 1 and Parent 2 — which has now been removed — did not refer to gender but to "user 1" and "user 2," i.e., the time at which the user logged onto their computer to fill in the data. The Minister said she was surprised that a purely technical issue could be reduced to a whole philosophy and conspiracy theories, stressing that "However many people try to exploit it for various purposes that we do not understand, they are simply creating unnecessary disruption in the world."

ELAM - DISY
ELAM has decided to register the issue ex officio with the Education Committee, stating that the use of terms such as "Parent 1" and "Parent 2" and "religious minority" challenge the Principles and Values of Hellenism, Orthodoxy, and the Sacred Institution of the Family.

On the part of the Democratic Rally, the Deputy Chairman of the party, Efthimios Diplaros, stressed that e-government cannot be used as an excuse to undermine the rights of mothers and fathers, nor to render the religious education lesson useless. At the same time, commenting on Michailidou's reference to conspiracy theories, he called for definitive solutions without delays or excuses that refer to these theories, while noting, "To invoke the Minister of Education as an excuse, claiming that it is purely a technical issue, we are surprised and, at the same time, challenged."

DIKO: There is no question of parent 1 and parent 2
The Democratic Party, in statements by the party's Press Spokesman Theodoros Manitaras to "K," said that "the institution of the family is self-evident for us, and there is no question of Parent 1 and Parent 2. It was a technical error, as announced by the Ministry of Education, which has been corrected."

This article was translated from its original Greek.