2024-01-11 16:37:50
If we accept that modern societies are changing and if we agree that we will not go back and try to live as we did in the 1960s, it stands to reason that we should look at the demand for same-sex marriage with today’s eyes. We won’t be the first. In America it is a normal process, as in about twenty countries of the European Union. At the end of the day, the marriage of two same-sex couples is nothing more than a legal contract – the prime minister clarified this yesterday, speaking on state television.
Is the family at risk if the marriage of same-sex couples is voted? Even the question is wrong. The Holy Family that the conservatives pretty much had in the last century no longer exists. It has scattered. It is not sustained by (any) spiritual bond, nor by the values that (it is said) profoundly shaped its formation, nor by social conditions. Her bankruptcy is measured daily in the police report. Our societies have no other choice than a new type of family, which will presuppose love and mutual respect. And these are not found in the mechanical reproduction of an already bankrupt model of relationships.
Are various conservatives right to react? First of all, let’s admit that marriage is an eminently conservative choice: cohabitation presupposes to some degree a restriction of the freedom that independent living has. Second, everyone, whether conservative or non-conservative, has a right to react because our societies are founded on dissent. Since the prime minister stated the obvious, that each member of parliament will decide for himself since the specific vote is a matter of the members’ consciences, the passing of the law is the responsibility of the national delegation. However, it is the responsibility of the leaderships of SYRIZA, PASOK and the New Left to allow their MPs to vote for a modernizing law and not to create a sterile opposition depriving society of a necessary piece of legislation. After all, ND had done something similar when SYRIZA brought to the Parliament the bill on the cohabitation agreement – which co-governor Kammenos and many of his MPs did not vote for.
Are various hierarchs, such as the new Patriarch of Thessaloniki, entitled to have a say on the bill? As citizens, everyone is entitled to have a say. But when the word is spoken from a pulpit in the name of orthodoxy, it is simply an attempt to manipulate the flock. Anyway, the Church does not get involved in the marriage of same-sex couples, because it is a secular matter and not God’s.
Do same-sex couples, male or female, have the right to procreate? In my opinion, they should have the same rights deriving from the marriage contract for all couples, and for children. The issue of surrogacy, which the prime minister raised by excluding male couples, apparently to avoid the commercialization of procreation, should have the strict conditions under which it is possible to resort to surrogacy by opposite-sex couples, as it is now. Development in society does not make sense to be marked by exceptions, but by a framework common to all.
In other words, let’s walk coolly into the new inclusive and de-discriminatory world. It’s better for everyone.
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