Leftist-Backed Same-Sex Civil Union Law Worries The Right & The Church

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The progressives, or Left, and the conservatives, or Right, are fighting a new cat and mouse game, and this time it concerns a law recognizing civil union between same-sex couples. On Wednesday the debate in Parliament heated up when it was proposed that the existing legislation would be extended. This prompted members of the church to intervene warning legislators not to vote for it.

The ruling conservatives, supported by the Independent Greek party as well as Golden Dawn are in reality all against this law, and especially over same sex marriages, but following the denial of the amendment extensive talks took over between officials from PASOK and New Democracy and according to press reports an agreement was reached.

A ruling by the European Court of Human Rights earlier this month condemned Greece for excluding gay people from civil partnerships. The court ruled that Greece had not offered “convincing and weighty reasons” to justify excluding gay people.

The case against the Greek government was brought by the former adviser to George Papandreou, Grigoris Vallianatos, Nikolaos Mylonas as well as other members of the non-government organization (NGO) “Synthesis”. The applicants argued that there was no provision in the domestic courts to examine the validity of their claims, since the current legislation causes discrimination and violation of privacy.

Meanwhile, a senior Orthodox cleric attacked plans to extend the legislation and he even warned that any MPs who decide to back this measure will be excommunicated.

In a nine-page statement Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus condemned alleged efforts to make “this terrible sin of homosexuality, sodomy, unnatural sexual intercourse, pederasty and paedophilia appear as normal behavior, as mere diversity.”

The Metropolitan underlined that any other relationship, barring that between a male and a female, “is a unnatural aberration not even observed in animals.”