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.”