Children do not automatically inherit from non-biological parents.
Athens:
Greece’s parliament is set to legalize same-sex marriage and adoption on Thursday, a landmark reform pushed by the conservative government over the objections of the country’s powerful Orthodox church.
Dozens of MPs from the ruling New Democratic Party are expected to oppose the bill in a vote Thursday night. But opposition support means the bill is certain to pass.
The vote was hailed as historic by LGBTQ associations, who said same-sex families faced a maze of administrative challenges that amounted to discrimination under current family law.
Non-biological parents currently do not have the power to decide what medical procedures their children need to undergo when they become ill in Greece.
Children do not automatically inherit from non-biological parents.
If the child has two fathers, it can only be registered at the Civil Registry and receive social services by entering the name of the biological mother.
If the biological parent dies, the state can take the child from the other parent.
– Church ‘totally opposed’ –
Greece will become the first Orthodox country, the 17th EU country and the 37th country in the world to legalize adoption for same-sex families.
The bill is expected to divide Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s conservative New Democracy Party, with dozens of the party’s 158 lawmakers likely to oppose or abstain.
However, the bill is certain to pass with the support of the main opposition Syriza party (whose leader Stefanos Kaselakis is gay), the socialist PASOK party and other smaller parties.
The bill requires a simple majority in a vote in the 300-member parliament to pass.
The Church of Greece, which is close to many government lawmakers, said it was “completely opposed” to the reform, arguing that it “condemns” children to grow up in a “chaotic environment”.
Church leader Archbishop Ieronimos slammed the proposed law, calling it part of the imposition of “a new reality that aims only to undermine social cohesion in the homeland”.
About 4,000 people demonstrated against the measure in Athens on Sunday.
Kaselakis, who married his partner in a ceremony in the United States in October, has suffered homophobic insults, most recently from a mayor in central Greece and the governor of an island group.
Mitsotakis, who personally supports the bill, was careful to stress last month that the changes would only benefit “a small number of children and couples.”
The conservative leader, who easily won re-election in June, had promised to implement the reform during his second four-year term.
He announced the news in January, just days after Caselakis said Syriza would submit its own marriage equality proposal.
-“A happy day”-
Greek LGBTQ families, who have kept a low profile since the reforms were unveiled last month, called for a celebratory gathering in Athens on Thursday.
“It’s a day of joy,” Rainbow Families Greek, an NGO that helps LGBTQ families, said on Facebook.
“We will play with the kids and ‘clear’ the stain we have had on who we are over the years,” the group said.
Same-sex couples still don’t have access to assisted reproduction or surrogate motherhood, procedures reserved for single women or opposite-sex couples who have trouble conceiving.
In 2008, gay couples were excluded from civil universities, and in 2013, Greece was condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for anti-gay discrimination.
Opinion polls show that a majority of Greeks support same-sex marriage but oppose surrogacy.
Under the Greek constitution, single parents have been able to adopt a child regardless of gender since 1946, but until now second partners in same-sex marriages have been excluded from the process.
Under the previous Syriza government, Greece legalized civil unions for same-sex couples in 2015, becoming one of the last countries in the EU to ratify such an agreement.
The law addressed property and inheritance issues but did not provide for the adoption of children.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
