Marriage between same-sex people is not a human right, nor is it obligatory for a country to adopt it, former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras asserted in parliament on Friday evening before a vote on a relevant bill.
Samaras said the same-sex civil marriage bill is a fundamental overturn of family law, and its repercussions go further. “Our party should not have introduced it for voting,” Samaras said of ruling New Democracy. “I will not vote for it. Marriage for same-sex couples is not a human right.” He added that “if a country wants to do it, it may” bring it to a vote. “But it is not mandatory, because it does not comprise a human right. It is a lie, that it supposedly is meant to establish a human right.”
The former prime minister also said the bill is also dangerous because marriage allows something beyond the cohabitation agreement, it allows adoption. “A child has the right to have parents of both sexes. Of course, fate and life sometimes denies this right. But in these cases, it is fate that denies them, not the state.” The state’s turning over children to same-sex couples for adoption essentially denies them conclusively the right to have a mother and father, which constitutes a flagrant violation of a child’s right, he insisted. As for children of same-sex couples having their future jeopardized when their parents’ marriage is not recognized, that is a false argument, because it could be resolved through the current legal framework, something the relevant minister admitted, Samaras said.
He also charged the government with trying to change the definition of family and abolishing the nuclear family. “A mother and father are two separate emotional models. Nobody can replace them. How is it possible that the sense of marriage is extended to relationships that do not connect with motherhood, or produce children? Do not believe this bill relates to a few people. It truly relates to a few, but in essence it touches everyone,” he stressed.
The former PM also pointed out that during public discussion of the issue, every disagreement was met by disparaging remarks. “It is dangerous for democracy,” he stressed, to publicly criticize such a bill. “The Communist Party (KKE) is against the bill. Does that make KKE far right? Is the Archbishop of Albania a homophobic? The Greek Orthodox Church is not about living in the dark ages and about priests – you either believe, or you don’t. The state is separate from the Church. We cannot denigrate a church that held our nation up.”
Samaras also charged that since 1977 he had seen in parliament many ideas appearing as landmark ones only to be forgotten or fail. “I have never seen such a bleak landscape for the West as the one we live in today,” he said. “So bleak for Europe itself and so traumatic for the principles of liberal democracy. In such deconstructionist theories of everything, we lead people to the absolute cynicism. Gentlemen of the government, this is not the way to return to the center. Overturning the family is not the center. Abolishing a mother and father is not the center. The theory of 69 genders is not modernity. Joining the culture of deconstructing everything is not a reform. All of these things have nothing to do with our party and our ideas, which are liberal, patriotic, Western, and European, but do not mimic every extreme thing coming from abroad,” he said.