The bill was supported by four left-wing parties, including the main opposition party Syriza.
“This law does not solve all the problems, but it is a start,” said Spyros Pipilas, a member of parliament for the small left-wing Corridor to Freedom party, who is openly gay.
Visitors applaud after the historic vote on the same-sex marriage bill in parliament in Athens.credit: Bloomberg
Three small far-right parties and the Stalinist-rooted Communist Party rejected the bill from the start of the two-day debate.
“People who were invisible will finally become visible around us. And with them, many children [will] “They have finally found their rightful place,” Mitsotakis said before the 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, travel, go to the doctor, take them to the hospital. … That's what we're fixing.
The bill grants full parental rights to married same-sex couples with children. But it prevents same-sex couples from having surrogates in Greece – an option currently available to women who cannot have children for health reasons.
Orthodox Greeks take part in a protest in Athens against the legalization of same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples.credit: GT
Many LGBTQ+ rights advocates have criticized this restriction, as well as the absence of any transgender-specific provision.
Psychologist Nancy Papathanasiou, co-scientific director of the Orlando LGBT+ organization, which advocates for LGBT mental health, echoed that concern but said the new law provides a very important sense of equality.
“Discrimination is the most prevalent risk factor for mental health,” she said. “So just knowing that there is less discrimination is protective and mental health enhancing for the LGBT community.”
download
Maria Syringilla, a lawmaker from the ruling New Democracy party, said the reform addressed long-standing injustices against same-sex couples and their children.
“Let's think about what these people went through, spending so many years in the shadows, entangled in bureaucratic procedures,” she said.
Among the dissidents within the ruling party was former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, from the conservative wing of the New Republic Party.
He told Parliament: “Same-sex marriage is not a human right… and it is not an international obligation for our country.” “Children have the right to have parents of both sexes.”
Opinion polls show that while most Greeks approve of same-sex marriage, they also reject expanding parenthood through surrogacy for male couples. Same-sex civil partnerships have been allowed in Greece since 2015. But that only gave legal guardianship to the biological parents of the children in those relationships, leaving their partners in a bureaucratic limbo.
The main opposition to the new bill came from the traditional Greek Church – which also does not approve of civil heterosexual marriages without validation by a church wedding ceremony.
Church officials have focused their criticism on the bill's effects on traditional family values, and argue that potential legal challenges could lead to surrogacy rights being expanded in the future to include same-sex couples.
Far-right MP Vassilis Stegas, head of the small Spartans party, described the legislation as “sick” and claimed that its adoption would “open the gates of hell and deviance.”
Politically, the same-sex marriage law is not expected to harm Mitsotakis' government, which easily won re-election last year after receiving many centrist votes.
The strongest challenge comes from ongoing protests by farmers angry at rising production costs, and strong opposition from many students to the planned abolition of the state monopoly on university education.
However, Parliament is expected to approve the draft university law later this month, and opinion polls indicate that a majority of Greeks support it.
AP
