Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis urged parliament on Thursday to “say yes to equality” and approve a bill allowing same-sex marriage, which would be a landmark victory for the LGBT+ community in the socially conservative country.
Parliament was expected to vote through the bill later on Thursday which would give same-sex couples the right to wed and adopt, and would make Greece one of the first Orthodox Christian countries to allow such unions.
“For every democratic citizen today is a day of joy. From tomorrow a barrier will be removed,” Mr Mitsotakis said in a speech to lawmakers.
Although some members of Mitsotakis’ centre-right New Democracy party were expected to abstain or vote against the bill, it was expected to gain enough support from leftist opposition parties.
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Polls ahead of the vote show Greeks are split on the issue. The powerful Orthodox Church, which says homosexuality is a sin, has strongly opposed it, while many in the LGBT+ community believe it does not go far enough.
The bill does not overturn obstacles for LGBT+ couples in using assisted reproduction methods. Surrogate pregnancies will also not be extended to LGBT+ individuals, though the bill recognises children already born through that method abroad.
Elliniki Lysi, one of the three far-right parties represented in parliament, said the bill was “anti-Christian” and hurt national interests.
LGBT+ groups have been pushing for reform for decades. In 2008 a lesbian and a gay couple defied the law and tied the knot on a tiny Greek island, but the wedding was later annulled by a top court.
Since then Greece has passed LGBT+ reforms, allowing civil partnership among same-sex couples in 2015 and the legal recognition of gender identity in 2017. Two years ago it banned conversion therapy for minors aimed at suppressing a person’s sexual orientation.
Few reforms in Greece have stirred as much rancour or debate. In the four weeks since announcing his government’s decision to draft the law, Mr Mitsotakis, has had to face the entrenched social conservatism of a populace resistant to change and suspicious of diversity. Populist tabloids have labelled the law “monstrous”.
Indicative of the hostility towards the measure, the far-right Spartans party leader Vassilis Stigas told parliament that the bill was tantamount to “opening the window” to paedophiles as he urged New Democracy MPs to vote against it, while the bishop of Piraeus claimed that homosexuality was a “mortal sin” and a cause of cancer. “Google it and you will see,” he told interviewers on Skai TV.
Outrage over the reform was on full display on Sunday when thousands of people attended a rally in Athens organised by Orthodox religious groups to deplore the “sodomisation of Greek society” and pray “in support of the family”.
Adoption of the bill would make Greece the 21st state in Europe, the 16th in the EU and the 37th worldwide to legalise same-sex marriage. – Reuters/Guardian
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