Greece's Prime Minister Plans to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage

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Jul 5, 2023 10:58 AM CUT

Athens Pride Parade 2023

Participants wave a giant rainbow flag in front of the Greek Parliament during the Pride Parade in Athens, Greece on June 10, 2023.

Participants wave a giant rainbow flag in front of the Greek Parliament during the Pride Parade in Athens, Greece on June 10, 2023.Nicolas Koutsokostas—NurPhoto/Getty Images

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Jul 5, 2023 10:58 AM CUT

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis plans to legalize same-sex marriage, a huge step forward for LGBTQ rights in a region where some conservative governments are cracking down on the community.

“Same-sex marriage will happen at some point and it’s part of our strategy,” Mitsotakis, a center-right politician, said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Athens. “Greek society is much more ready and mature.”

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Like the majority of countries in the European Union, Greece currently recognizes same-sex unions in some form but stops shy of supporting full marriage. For its part, Greece saw a jump in a 2023 ranking of LGBTQ rights among European countries by ILGAEurope after the government banned genital mutilation on intersex children last year.

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The Brussels-based non-governmental umbrella organization benchmarks 49 countries on their legal and policy situation for LBGTI people, from 0% to 100%. With a ranking of 57% in the latest report, up five percentage points compared to the previous year, Greece has overtaken countries such as the U.K. and Germany.

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LGBTQ rights around the world have come under the spotlight once again in recent months. In Uganda lawmakers passed a bill earlier this year outlawing homosexuality, with punishments as tough as the death penalty. In the U.S. meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Ron De Santis was accused of posting a homophobic video to mark the end of Pride month. In Europe, the LGBTQ community faced increasingly targeted attacks in 2022.

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Momentum for change began in Greece in 2021 when Mitsotakis appointed a committee to draft a national strategy for improving LGBTQ rights. He has introduced a number of reforms since then including lifting a ban on homosexual men making blood donations and ending the practice of so-called sex normalizing surgeries on children. Few had expected him to become such a powerful force for change.

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Same-sex civil partnerships were legally recognized in Greece in 2015 and gender identity in 2017, but progress on other issues had been piecemeal until Mitsotakis came to power in 2019.