Greece legalizes same-sex marriage, 1st Orthodox Christian country to do so – National | 24CA News
Greece on Thursday grew to become the primary Orthodox Christian nation to legalize same-sex civil marriage, regardless of opposition from the influential, socially conservative Greek Church.
A cross-party majority of 176 lawmakers within the 300-seat parliament voted late Thursday in favor of the landmark invoice drafted by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis ‘ center-right government. Another 76 rejected the reform while two abstained from the vote and 46 were not present in the house.
Mitsotakis tweeted after the vote that Greece “is proud to become the 16th (European Union) country to legislate marriage equality.”
“This is a milestone for human rights, reflecting today’s Greece — a progressive, and democratic nation, passionately dedicated to European values,” he wrote.
Opinion polls recommend that the majority Greeks help the proposed reform by a slender margin, and the difficulty has didn’t set off deep divisions in a rustic extra nervous in regards to the excessive value of residing.
The invoice was backed by 4 left-wing events, together with the primary opposition Syriza.
“This law doesn’t solve every problem, but it is a beginning,” mentioned Spiros Bibilas, a lawmaker from the small left-wing Passage to Freedom celebration, who’s brazenly homosexual.
It was accepted regardless of a number of majority and left-wing lawmakers abstaining or voting towards the reform. Three small far-right events and the Stalinist-rooted Communist Party rejected the draft legislation from the beginning of the two-day debate.
Supporters, waving rainbow banners, and opponents of the invoice, holding non secular icons and praying, held separate small, peaceable gatherings exterior parliament Thursday.
“People who have been invisible will finally be made visible around us. And with them, many children (will) finally find their rightful place,” Mitsotakis advised lawmakers forward of the night vote.
“Both parents of same-sex couples do not yet have the same legal opportunities to provide their children with what they need,” he added. “To be able to pick them up from school, to be able to travel, to go to the doctor, or take them to the hospital. … That is what we are fixing.”
The invoice confers full parental rights on married same-sex companions with kids. But it precludes homosexual {couples} from parenthood by way of surrogate moms in Greece — an possibility at present accessible to ladies who can’t have kids for well being causes.
Maria Syrengela, a lawmaker from the governing New Democracy, or ND, mentioned the reform redresses a long-standing injustice for same-sex {couples} and their kids.
“And let’s reflect on what these people have been through, spending so many years in the shadows, entangled in bureaucratic procedures,” she mentioned.
Dissidents among the many governing celebration included former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, from ND’s conservative wing.
“Same-sex marriage is not a human right … and it’s not an international obligation for our country,” he advised parliament. “Children have a right to have parents from both sexes.”
Polls present that whereas most Greeks conform to same-sex weddings in addition they reject extending parenthood by way of surrogacy to male {couples}. Same-sex civil partnerships have been allowed in Greece since 2015. But that solely conferred authorized guardianship to the organic mother and father of youngsters in these relationships, leaving their companions in a bureaucratic limbo.
The essential opposition to the brand new invoice has come from the traditionalist Church of Greece — which additionally disapproves of heterosexual civil marriage.
Church officers have centered their criticism on the invoice’s implications for conventional household values, and argue that potential authorized challenges might result in a future extension of surrogacy rights to homosexual {couples}.
Church supporters and conservative organizations have staged small protests towards the proposed legislation.
Far-right lawmaker Vassilis Stigas, head of the small Spartans celebration, described the laws Thursday as “sick” and claimed that its adoption would “open the gates of Hell and perversion.”
Politically, the same-sex marriage legislation just isn’t anticipated to hurt Mitsotakis’ authorities, which received simple re-election final yr after capturing a lot of the centrist vote.
A stronger problem comes from ongoing protests by farmers offended at excessive manufacturing prices, and intense opposition from many college students to the deliberate scrapping of a state monopoly on college training.
Nevertheless, parliament is anticipated to approve the college invoice later this month, and opinion polls point out that the majority Greeks help it.
—Associated Press reporters Derek Gatopoulos and Theodora Tongas in Athens contributed to this report.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
