Greece becomes the first Orthodox country to allow same-sex marriage

Greece was expected to legalize gay marriage and equal parental rights for same-sex couples on Thursday, after lawmakers considered a bill that has divided Greek society and drawn fierce opposition from the country's powerful Orthodox Church.

Although Greece would be the sixteenth country in the European Union to allow same-sex marriage, it would be the first Orthodox Christian nation to pass such a law. The country expanded civil partnerships to same-sex couples in 2015, but failed to extend equal parental rights at the time.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had promised to implement the new measures after his landslide re-election last year. He told his cabinet last month that same-sex marriage is an equal rights issue, noted that similar legislation is in place in more than 30 other countries, and said there are no “second-class citizens” or “children of a lesser God.”

In addition to recognizing same-sex marriages, the legislation paves the way for adoption and gives the same rights to both same-sex parents as legal guardians of the child, while until now such rights only applied to the biological parent. The bill does not provide same-sex couples with access to assisted reproduction or the option of surrogacy. It also does not give transgender people rights as parents.

Human rights campaigners have welcomed the prospect of same-sex marriage for Greece. Maria Gavouneli, the president of Greece's National Commission for Human Rights, an independent government body, called the measure “long overdue.” And Stella Belia, the founder of Rainbow Families, an organization that supports same-sex families, called the legislation “a major victory that we have been fighting for for years.”

One of the first to benefit from the new law is Lio Emmanouilidou, a 43-year-old teacher, who plans to marry her long-term partner in Thessaloniki on March 8, International Women's Day. She said she was excited about the wedding and welcomed the bill as “a step in the right direction and a big win for the community.”

However, she lamented that even with its approval, her partner would still face a “long and expensive” adoption process – costing around €3,500 – to become the legal guardian of Ms Emmanouilidou's six-year-old son, who is the partners grew up together as a family. (Under the new bill, both members of a same-sex married couple would automatically be legally recognized as parents of children the couple gives birth to or adopts.)

Ms Emmanouilidou also said she felt unnerved by the opposition to the measures. But she said that, in her experience, most Greeks accepted same-sex couples and her school and community treated her family like anyone else.

“Society is much more ready for this than we think,” she says.

But in a country that remains one of the most socially conservative in Europe, where the traditional family model still dominates and the influential Orthodox Church views homosexuality as an aberration, the measures have met with some resistance.

The Holy Synod, the highest authority of the Greek Orthodox Church, argued in a letter to lawmakers this month that the bill “abolishes fatherhood and motherhood, neutralizes the sexes” and creates an environment of confusion for children. Clergy have echoed the sentiment in sermons across the country in recent weeks, with some bishops saying they would refuse to baptize the children of same-sex couples.

Church groups also joined forces with far-right parties to hold rallies in Athens and other cities to oppose the changes. Last Sunday, hundreds of people held a demonstration outside Parliament, with some holding banners reading: “There is only one family, the traditional one.”

Opinion polls in recent weeks showed that Greek society was divided on these issues: in most surveys, half of respondents expressed support for same-sex marriage, but most respondents also said they were against same-sex couples having children would adopt.

The bill also sparked disagreement across the Greek political spectrum.

In the ruling New Democracy party, dozens of lawmakers, including a prominent minister and a former prime minister, argued that the legislation weakened the nuclear family and undermined traditional values. Greek Communist Party leader Dimitris Koutsoubas told parliament last month that legalizing same-sex marriage would “abolish motherhood and fatherhood.”

And the issue caused division within Syriza, the main opposition party, with some lawmakers saying the bill did not go far enough, others reluctant to support a conservative government bill on what they considered a liberal issue and some concerned winning support in rural areas.

Syriza has even drafted its own alternative bill, but the party leader, Stefanos Kasselakis – who is Greece's first openly gay party leader and has expressed a desire to adopt children through surrogacy with his partner, with whom he met in New York last October married – later urged his fellow lawmakers to support the administration's legislation.

Supporters said the changes were a crucial step toward granting full rights to gay people and their children, and opening minds in a society where traditional heteronormative attitudes prevail.

“It's the best we could get from a center-right government with that kind of internal opposition and the entire Orthodox Church putting pressure on you,” Ms. Belia said. “I have to hand it over to Mitsotakis so he can follow up.”