It is opposed to the constitutionally protected institution of family and marriage the law recently passed by Parliament and allows same-sex couples to marry and have a child by same-sex couples, support three unions in the first annulment petition filed with the Council of State on this issue. Greece is the 37th country in the world to recognize marriage equality, introducing the rule that marriage is entered into between two persons of the same or different sex.
The purpose of Law 5089/2024 on equality in civil marriage, as stated in its first article, is “to ensure the principle of equality by extending the possibility of entering into marriage to persons of the same sex, and by strengthening protection against discrimination, towards its implementation National Strategy for LGBTI Equality». After the passing of the law, three unions filed a petition with the Council of Ministers in which they request the cancellation of the ministerial decision which determines the manner of keeping the registry books with regard to the part that concerns the recording of the details of parents and spouses on the registry acts of birth and marriage. The ministerial decision in question was issued after the passing of Law 5089/2024.
Arguments
The unions argue that with the disputed law the institution of the family is completely modified, to the point of including same-sex couples and parents, which is in stark contrast to Article 21 of the Constitution which provides that the family is the foundation of the maintenance and advancement of the nation, as it also provides that marriage, motherhood and childhood are under the protection of the state. The same constitutional article, according to the unions, “cannot mean any other kind of family than the one defined for centuries by the physiology of the human body, which reproduces and multiplies only by the union of a man and a woman and never by the union of people of the same sex.” .
They also underline that a family is understood as “a group of people connected to each other by ties of blood, marriage or adoption, consisting of the father, mother and children and usually living under this roof”.
They do not fail to point out that theories of the supposed non-existence of the “natural origin of the two sexes” are social constructs, or that the sexes are not two, or that it is exclusionary to ban same-sex marriage, or that parenting children without a father should be allowed, and mother, but with parent “A” and parent “B” are not compatible with Article 21 of the Constitution, nor with the protection of childhood”. According to the constitutional rules, marriage, family, motherhood and childhood are under the protection of the state, i.e. “presuppose the existence of a father and a mother (male and female), i.e. the existence of parents of different sexes”, which presupposes the performance marriage between persons of different sexes, they additionally report.
Consequently, by contrast, it is concluded that “our Constitution does not accept the existence of the right to marry between persons of the same sex”, since this does not lead to the constitutional conditions for the protection of motherhood, the family and children.
At another point they state that “the establishment of same-sex marriage does not preserve or strengthen the family and marriage and cannot be a fundamental institution for the nation and society.”
The children
THE adoption of children by same-sex couples violates the constitutional principle of equality (Article 4), the unions point out, and this is because: “Giving same-sex couples the opportunity to adopt children and to constitute their two parents by law constitutes a substantial circumvention of the constitutional principle of equality, as it deprives from some children the right to be brought up in a family with a mother and a father, receiving from each of them what motherhood and fatherhood offer for their life and psychosomatic development”.
And all this, “at the moment when there is the possibility of being adopted by heterosexual families”, so that “adopted children enjoy both maternal and paternal affection”. Thus, it is underlined “by recognizing the right of adoption by same-sex couples, a disadvantageous discrimination is created against the children adopted by such couples, while other children enjoy upbringing in a family, the paternal and maternal model”.
However, they typically state that “despite efforts to convince public opinion to the contrary, it is a common desire of every human being, regardless of their own sexual orientation, to have their mother and father, who are for every human being sacred figures and with which mental bonds are created that are indestructible, that transcend even death”. To succeed same-sex couple “the adoption of an orphaned or abandoned child, as is now made possible by law 5089/2024, deprives the adopted child of the eternal and sacred parental standards, mother and father, putting the child in an unfavorable position, more unfavorable than other orphaned or abandoned children adopted by married androgynous women’.
