What the bill provides for marriage and adoption of same-sex couples

Through the frequency of public television tonight, the Prime Minister chooses to open his cards and explain the content of the government initiative on the issue of same-sex marriage and the right to procreation.

His move to speed up the public debate and, ultimately, the passage of the controversial bill is intended on the one hand to close – for obvious reasons – the rift in relations with the Church before Easter and, on the other hand, to record the mood within the Parliamentary Group before this particular piece of legislation makes its way through Parliament and is put to a vote.

Already, however, as reflected in an ALCO poll, ND is recording losses due to the debate on same-sex marriage, mainly towards the Greek Solution, with 49% openly disagreeing with same-sex marriage (58% among New Democracy voters), while 35% of respondents appear in favour (28% of ND voters).

Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ associates noted that in his TV interview he will focus in particular on the need to protect children of same-sex couples, who are currently not recognised and in exceptional cases – loss of one parent – are forced to return to welfare institutions.

According to reports, the bill will include a total of 13 articles and is scheduled to be submitted to Parliament by mid-February, after a public consultation where all opinions and proposals will be heard, as well as meetings between the Prime Minister and those directly concerned.

In particular, on the issue of childbearing – where the strongest opposition is expressed – the government initiative will not recognise as a right for same-sex male couples the right to medically assisted reproduction through a surrogate mother, which was expressed as a wish by the president of SYRIZA, Stefanos Kasselakis, although for the moment it remains a mystery whether the ban will include same-sex couples of women, since women already have the right to medically assisted reproduction.

However, children born abroad and those born with a surrogate mother, also abroad, will be recognised. In Greece this option is prohibited, but if a couple goes abroad and has a child with a surrogate mother, the Greek state will recognise it.

The parents will be listed as ‘father father’ or ‘mother mother’ and not as ‘parent 1’ or ‘parent 2’. In addition, the bill will recognise equal rights for same-sex couples, but will exclude intersex people or those who declare a “third gender”, while same-sex couples who marry abroad will have their marriage automatically recognised, although they will be asked to choose whether to keep their marriage or the civil partnership they enter into in Greece.