Same-sex marriage and parental rights go together, government official says
Α government official reiterated that an announced plan to realize same-sex marriage will also include an extension of parental rights to gay couples.
“Marriage and adoption [of children] go together, because obviously when you talk about marriage you also talk about childbearing. There is discrimination against children, which must be removed,” Dimitris Tsiodras, head of the Greek prime minister’s press office, told television channel ANT1 on Wednesday.
“The bill will be tabled, because it solves problems. The prime minister has said that it will be tabled and it will in the order he considers appropriate,” he said about the timing of the submission. He also clarified that the bill “is not a matter for the Church, it’s a matter for the executive and legislative.”
Premier Kyriakos Mitsotakis said shortly after his reelection in 2023 that he plans to legalize same-sex marriage during his second term in government, but stopped short of specifying when this would happen.
The bill has been met with reactions within the ruling Conservatives. In November last year, Minister of State Makis Voridis said he would resign if Mitsotakis were to request party discipline in a parliamentary vote for the bill. Former prime minister Antonis Samaras said in an interview with Kathimerini last November that he will vote against legalizing same-sex marriage, claiming that “we must support the nuclear family, where we have parental models of both sexes.”
Greece’s influential Orthodox Church has also slammed such a move. The Church’s governing Holy Synod issued a 1,500-word opinion last December, claiming that children are being treated as “accessories” and “companion pets” for gay couples.
Opinion polls suggest Greeks are evenly divided on the issue of same-sex marriage, but opposed to extending full parental rights to gay couples.
Greece legalized same-sex civil partnerships in 2015.
