Gov’t Grants Legal Status To Same-Sex Couples

  • by XpatAthens
  • Friday, 06 March 2015
Gov’t Grants Legal Status To Same-Sex Couples

Justice Minister Nikolaos Paraskevopoulos told Parliament that legal cohabitation agreements will be made possible for same-sex couples in Greece, but the adoption of children by gay couples will not be permitted yet.

The new government‘s pledge to grant legal civil partnerships to homosexual couples is in response to a 2013 decision by the Council of Europe’s Court of Human Rights that awarded plaintiffs damages after successfully challenging the Greek state over the civil partnership law that has been available to heterosexual couples since 2008.

However, the support to same-sex marriage does not extend to gay adoptions. “It is a difficult issue that requires dialogue,” said Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras when asked about the subject recently. “There are disputes in the scientific community about this and we will not include it in our policy program.”

To read more, please visit greekreporter.com

By Philip Chrysopoulos