ATHENS, Greece
The Greek parliament on
Thursday voted in favor of a bill to allow same-sex couples to
marry.
It makes Greece the first
Orthodox Christian country to legalize same-sex civil marriage.
The bill was approved by a
cross-party majority of 176 lawmakers in the 300-seat parliament.
"This is a historic
moment," Stella Belia, the head of same-sex parents group Rainbow
Families, told Reuters. "This is a day of joy."
Prime Minister Kyriakos
Mitsotakis called the outcome "a milestone for human
rights" and noted that Greece was the 16th country in the European Union
to legislate marriage equality.
The bill also grants adoption
rights to same sex couples.
"Both parents of same-sex
couples do not yet have the same legal opportunities to provide their children
with what they need," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said ahead of the
vote on Thursday night.
"To be able to pick them
up from school, to be able to travel, to go to the doctor, or take them to the
hospital. ... That is what we are fixing."
However, the law does not
allow parenthood through surrogacy for male couples — an option which is
available to women who cannot have children for health reasons.
Opinion polls suggest that
most Greeks support the reforms by a narrow margin.
The bill was supported by many
lawmakers from Mitsotakis' center-right New Democracy party along with four
left-wing parties, including the main opposition party Syriza.
"This law doesn't solve
every problem, but it is a beginning," said Spiros Bibilas, an openly gay
lawmaker from the small left-wing Passage to Freedom party.
However, three small far-right
parties as well as the Stalinist-rooted Communist Party of Greece (KKE)
rejected the bill.
The head of the Orthodox
Church of Greece, Archbishop Ieronymos, also condemned the law as a "new
reality that seeks only to corrupt the homeland's social cohesion."
Outside parliament, opponents
of marriage equality held religious icons and prayed while supporters waved
rainbow flags.
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