Greece is one step away from becoming the first majority-Orthodox country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage. As happened in Angela Merkel’s Germany or in the United Kingdom with David Cameron, it will not be done under a leftist government, but at the initiative of a conservative prime minister, Kiriakos Mitsotakis, who enjoys a large majority after being re-elected in the elections of the last year with New Democracy.
“What we are going to legislate is marriage equality. We will eliminate any discrimination on sexual orientation in marital relations,” the prime minister assured the ERT network, and pointed out that this already happens in many European countries. After the scandal of illegal tapping into the phones of politicians, journalists and businessmen that put Mitsotakis in the eye of the storm, some analysts believe that the legalization of gay marriage is a move to present Greece to its partners as a modern country, and his Government, as a reformist, four months before the community vote.
Marriage equality was in the prime minister’s campaign, but it is still a risky bet. Mitsotakis has provoked the wrath of the leadership of the Greek Orthodox Church, and also of the most conservative sectors of New Democracy. The clergy is on the warpath, with protest demonstrations called this Sunday. Its highest authority, Archbishop Jerónimo, believes that homosexuality is a “deviation” and has demanded that the issue be voted on in a referendum. Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus has gone further to warn that all parliamentarians who vote in favor of the reform “cannot remain members of the Church.” After the failure of the constitutional reform to separate the Church from the State, Greece remains a confessional State in which the clergy continues to enjoy enormous influence. An education minister in the Syriza government had to resign after he failed to change texts on religion in school books.
In New Democracy there is also a rebellion underway. Barring surprises, the reform will be approved this Thursday by the Greek Parliament, but for this the prime minister will need the votes of the left-wing opposition, because around a quarter of his parliamentarians will abstain. Among the deserters there are important names such as former Prime Minister Andonis Samaras or the Minister of State of this same Executive, Makis Voridis.
“Mitsotakis is in some ways an outsider in his own party. Yes, he comes from a political dynasty and is part of the Greek elite, but he has always been a liberal on social and economic issues, and this makes him an outsider in a traditionally conservative party, more right-wing than center-right. Progressive social reforms are part of his beliefs,” explains the editor of the political analysis portal Macropolis, Nick Malkoutzis. “For this reason, he is trying to strike a balance: he maintains a firm line with issues that he knows are important, such as the fight against immigration or firmness with Turkey, but at the same time he tries to attract centrist votes with measures of this type” , he points out.
By giving his parliamentarians freedom to vote, Mitsotakis has also forced the left to position itself in the face of a complicated dilemma: either choose a progressive proposal that his voters like but come to the rescue of a right-wing premier, or vote against equal marriage. Not even progressives are united on this issue. Syriza, which recently has the first leader of an openly gay Greek party, Stefanos Kasselakis, has said it supports the reform, but some important exponents do not support it. El Pasok will surely end up supporting Mitsotakis with a small mouth, while the KKE communists oppose gay marriage because “it eliminates fatherhood and motherhood.”
