Deputies Discuss Proposal to Allow Same-Sex Marriage

The Chamber of Deputies is considering legalizing same-sex marriage at an extraordinary session.

The lower house began negotiations on the matter in March 2019 but did not even finish the opening round of the debate. If the situation turns out differently today, the Czech Republic will get a chance to become the seventeenth European country and twenty-ninth country in the world to allow gay marriages.

Deputies were given red tulips on the way to work today. “We want to mark the anniversary of twenty years since the approval of marriage for all in the first country in the world, the Netherlands,” said Filip Milde of Jsme Fér initiative.

Currently, gays or lesbians can only enter into a registered partnership in the Czech Republic, which does not give them the same rights as spouses. For example, registered partners are not entitled to a widow’s pension, and by entering into a partnership they do not have joint property nor can they adopt a child.

The proposal to allow same-sex couples to marry is being discussed at an extraordinary session convened by Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Radek Vondráček of ANO.

The approval of its program will show whether or not members want to deal with the agenda. Before the vote, only lawmakers with a preferential right will be able to deliver a speech and express their opinion on the issue.

More than four dozen deputies from different parties supported the initiative. That being said, many Deputies are fiercely opposed to the project.

“I personally respect the value of marriage, which for me is a union of a man and a woman, and I perceive the possible change of this institution to a two-person relationship as a denial of the laws of nature and a destructive intervention into the cornerstone of society,” claimed Ivana Nevludová, Deputy of party Unified – Alternative for Patriots.

During the debate, Nevludová declared that people could not and should not think of anything better than a marriage of a man and a woman.

Tomio Okamura, leader of SPD party, said that he would rather “jump out the window” than be adopted by a couple of the same sex.

Counter-proposal will also be discussed during the session. More than three dozen other Deputies have signed a motion to enshrine in the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms that only a man and a woman have the right to marry.

Hundred and twenty votes of Deputies and a three-fifths majority in the Senate are needed for the motion to pass, which will virtually ban same-sex marriage in the country.