Greece becomes the first Orthodox Christian country to approve same-sex marriage. Society

Greece has approved same-sex marriage, becoming the first Orthodox Christian country to legalize unions between people of the same sex. Parliament has amended the Civil Code to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry. Greece thus becomes the 37th country to officially recognize families formed by people of the same sex. The law, which passed with 176 votes in favor…

Greece has approved same-sex marriage, becoming the first Orthodox Christian country to legalize unions between people of the same sex. Parliament has amended the Civil Code to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry. Greece thus becomes the 37th country to officially recognize families formed by people of the same sex. The law, which passed with 176 votes in favor, 76 votes against and two abstentions, grants them the same rights as heterosexual marriages. In couples with children, non-biological parents will be able to adopt minors who, until now, officially had only one father or one mother. They can also adopt a minor together. The law excludes the possibility of homosexual couples resorting to surrogacy, despite the fact that clinics providing this service to heterosexual couples are legal in Greece.

Hundreds of people, called by LGTBI+ groups, have gathered in Athens’ Syntagma Square, opposite the Parliament, in what they consider a victory for their movement. The rally lasted until almost midnight local time (an hour less in mainland Spain), at which time voting closed. In the early afternoon, several dozen Christian fundamentalists gathered, also in Syntagma Square, to protest a law they consider “satanic” and contrary to their concept of family. There have been no incidents between the two concentrations.

New Democracy, Syriza, PASOC, Rumbo a la Libertad and Nueva Izquierda voted in favor and against. No The three extreme right-wing parties and the Communist Party (the latter formed, with the exception of a few minor articles which it supported, because the law is divided into three sections). Although the activists gathered in Syntagma assumed that the outcome of the vote would be favourable, the number of supports was not confirmed until the last moment, as both New Democracy, Syriza and PASOK had many deputies who did not clarify the meaning of their vote. Was . In addition to the 176 MPs who voted in favor, 76 who voted against and two who abstained, there were also 46 deputies who were absent from the vote. The parliamentary session has been exhausting; It has been extended throughout Wednesday and Thursday and 130 delegates out of a total of 300 have asked to speak during this period. Greece’s parliament had become accustomed to voting on important laws at midnight or even in the early hours of the morning during the financial crisis reforms of the last decade.

The promoter of the law has been Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, which has caused the first internal crisis in his party, New Democracy, since he was elected in 2019. “This is something our Constitution provides, and our society demands.” “People around us who were invisible until now can become visible,” said the Prime Minister this Thursday, who defended that this law is a way to protect children, a statement that echoes those of his party. Controversial for the most conservative part. ,

The most important vote against it was that of former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, leader of New Democracy’s inner faction, known as the Karamanlis family. Ministers Thanos Plaviris and Makis Voridis, who belong to the most conservative wing of the party, abstained so as not to vote in protest. The other twenty New Democracy delegates voted against.

The Communist Party (KKE) voted against it with the argument of protecting the interests of children. The far right has also given the same argument. For Dimitris Koutsoubas, General Secretary of the Communists, being gay and “the coexistence of two adults” are both “personal” issues; In contrast, what belongs to children “belongs to society and goes beyond the individual will of adults.”

Vasilios Astygas, spokesman for the Spartans formation – the successor to the neo-Nazis of Golden Dawn – has declared: “If this sickening bill is approved, the gates of hell and perversion will also open for Greece.” To the true Spartans, the people of ancient Greece, it would seem ridiculous that anyone who bore their name would make homophobic pronouncements. Leonidas’s men believed that homosexuality helped strengthen the citizen-soldier bond and, therefore, benefited the state. Niki’s deputy Tasos Economopoulos, another far-right party, has opposed it because, according to him, the law “violates the sacred right of every child to grow up with a father and a mother, as created by God the Creator. is intended. “

Mitsotakis, re-elected with an absolute majority in July last year, aims to gain the maximum possible position on the political chessboard from the right to the centre. On the one hand, it clashes with the three far-right parties over one of Europe’s toughest immigration policies. And, on the other hand, he approves of such measures, which distance him from the conservative right and present him as a liberal force. It’s an ambitious strategy that is not without risks. Greece is not a secular country, the constitution allows freedom of worship, but establishes Orthodox Christianity as the official religion of the state. The Church still has great power and it is not easy for New Democracy to support doctrines that the clergy oppose. Although with varying intensity, all archbishops of Greece oppose equal marriage.

Archbishop Jerome of Athens and all Greece had said that the vote in Parliament should be nominal. That is, each deputy will say out loud whether he or she is in favor or against, arguing that “democracy and the interests of the Greek people” depend on it. This was the first time that an archbishop had requested such a specific measure. However, this is not what the Parliament table has decided.

Although New Democracy opposes the separation of church and state, and indeed blocked the constitutional reform in this regard proposed by Syriza if it won the elections in 2019, Mitsotakis defended in parliament this Thursday that the state should be independent and “We must advance our progress with action toward equality before the law.” In the face of those who accuse him of not protecting Christian values, he has declared that “what is Caesar’s is Caesar’s and what is God’s”, remember that the Greek Parliament had already years ago The possibility of a civil marriage or funeral was confirmed. bodies, two issues that were very controversial for the Orthodox Church in its time.

It has not been an easy process for Syriza either. For half a year, the main opposition party has been led by Stephanos Kasselakis, the first unknown politician to lead a party in Greece. No one will understand that he has voted against the rights of his own group. For this reason, Kasselakis has not only supported the reform from the beginning, but also announced that, unlike New Democracy, Syriza delegates will not have the freedom to vote. This description did not sit well with key figures in his party, who argued that Syria should not serve as a crutch for Mitsotakis on an issue that would cause internal division.

All eyes are on Pavlos Polakis, as he was one of the main supporters with whom Kasselakis won the Syriza primaries. Polakis did not appear in parliament and made the excuse that he was seeing patients in his medical office. His absence has been taken advantage of by Mistoutakis, who has tried to downplay the importance of his dissent by giving visibility to inconsistencies in Syriza and the “thunderous silence” of the PASOK leader, Nicos Androlakis.