Source: “AKP’li Memecan: Herkesin kendi farklılığı ile var olmasını sağlamalıyız” (“AK Party member Memecan: We must enable all to exist with their own diversity”) KAOS GL, 24 November 2014, http://kaosgl.org/sayfa.php?id=18039

Nursuna Memecan, of the ruling Justice and Development Party, and Binnaz Toprak, of the Republican People’s Party, attended a conference, organized by the European Parliament, concerning protecting LGBTI persons from discrimination on 20-21 November 2014. Speaking to kaosGL.org, Memecan made the following statements concerning the rights of disadvantaged groups:

“It is necessary for everyone to be able to live with dignity”

“It is necessary for the rights of all disadvantaged groups to be granted. It is necessary for all to be able to live freely, without feeling pressure on themselves and to live with dignity. It is necessary that both the Roma people and the disabled can live with dignity, that no one look upon them with pity.”
“We may love someone or we may not, but we are obligated to have respect”

“This applies likewise to LGBT persons as well. Not out of pity; we need to perceive that there is an equal human being in front of us. For this reason, we need to learn respect for one another. Whether to love or even not to love someone is not important; you know how people always say, ‘Let us all love another’; this is not at all necessary; we need to have respect. We may love someone or we may not, but we are obligated to have respect.”

“We must teach children from an early age to live with diversity”

“I need to understand that whatever it is that I want for myself, others have a right to it as well; I need to establish empathy; we need to learn to have respect. This, too, is not something that can be learned after a certain age. We grow up with various prejudices. It is necessary to teach children from an early age to live with diversity, that diversity is beautiful and special, within the family and at school.”

“We must enable all to exist with their own diversity”

“When more diverse people live together, more synergy arises; if something is to be created, it develops through coming together of different points of view. When you put a lot of people who think the same way in one place, they’ll all say the same thing. Bring together divergent points of views, people who think differently; if we suppress them, that society goes nowhere. It is necessary to enable all to exist with their own diversity and take pride in themselves so that they may be productive.”