A small earthquake shook the Greek Parliament tonight. Greece has become the first majority-Orthodox country in the world in which homosexual couples can marry thanks to a historic reform that has angered both the leadership of the influential Orthodox Church and much of the Greek right. The result of the vote was 176 votes in favor, 76 against, 46 abstentions and two null votes.
“Starting tomorrow, one more barrier between us will be removed and will become a point of coexistence in a free State between free citizens,” celebrated Prime Minister Kiriakos Mitsotakis, re-elected in the June elections last summer with a wide most. “This reform makes the lives of many of our citizens better, without taking anything away from the lives of others,” said the premier, after years defending this measure as a path to modernization so that Greece can be on par with other democracies. the European Union – it is the sixteenth EU country to legalize gay marriage – and also so that there are no “second class” citizens.
However, the prime minister has found himself facing a completely divided country. He himself acknowledged that the debate has generated “disproportionate headlines.” The Orthodox Church has opposed it head-on, arguing that it “will abolish paternity and maternity,” and even Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus warned that all parliamentarians who vote in favor of the reform “cannot continue to be members of the Church.” . The confrontation is such that its leader, Archbishop Jerome II of Athens, asked the parliamentarians that the vote be nominal, so that each deputy could express out loud the meaning of his vote. Mitsotakis responded by demanding that the Church not interfere in a matter of State and reminded him of the different roles that the two institutions have. “To Caesar, what is Caesar's, and to God, what is God's,” he warned.
The movement of the Orthodox leadership was a way to pressure the representatives of New Democracy, the prime minister's party, not to support his proposal after the president gave his party freedom to vote "according to his conscience." And he achieved it, since almost a third of the 158 deputies of the center-right party, which enjoys an absolute majority, had said that they would vote against or abstain. Among the rebels were well-known names such as former Prime Minister Andonis Samaras, who in a very harsh message accused his successor of “abolishing the nuclear family.” The three far-right parliamentary forces and the Communist Party also opposed the vote. Faced with this situation, Mitsotakis sought the support of the two main opposition parties, both Syriza – which recently had the first leader of an openly gay Greek party, Stefanos Kasselakis – and the social democrats of Pasok, who had no choice. to come to the rescue so as not to betray their ideals.
The reform will not only legalize same-sex marriage, but also paves the way for adoptions and gives equal rights to both parents as guardians of children, solving a major headache for many families. Since 2015, civil unions have been legal between homosexual people in Greece, but only the biological parent had rights over the children and, if he died, the State withdrew custody from the non-parent. Furthermore, children of two homosexual parents found it very difficult to register, since the name of a mother was mandatory to obtain an identity card. In his speech during a heated debate in Parliament, Mitsotakis defended that this will make life much easier for many families, allowing both members to “travel with their children, take them to the doctor or pick them up from school.”
What the reform does not do is open the door for same-sex couples to become parents through surrogacy, a legal system in Greece for years for heterosexual couples when it is proven that the woman cannot conceive naturally. “This law comes after some important steps in equality for the LGTBI community in Greece. There are still problems, but in general it is a great advance,” says Belinda Bear, a technician at the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA).
