The lower house of the Czech parliament on Wednesday approved same-sex “partnerships” with limited rights at the legislative level, but refused to amend the law allowing same-sex marriage.
Under the new amendment, same-sex couples in the Czech Republic can enter into a civil partnership with most legal marital rights – such as joint property, widow and widower pensions, etc. However, the act would restrict the adoption of children by same-sex couples and would not be called marriage. Czech non-profit initiative “Jsme fér” (‘We are fair’), which campaigns for full equality for LGBT people, wrote on X in response to Wednesday’s vote:
“Marriage for all couples was not accepted. It is a sad day for thousands of families with children who have two moms or two dads and hundreds of thousands of LGBT people. It is a sad day for justice and equality in our country.”
One partner will now be able to adopt the other partner’s child, biological or adopted, out of foster care. For children adopted by same-sex partners, this will mean that they will have to go through the adoption process with the first parent, who will then be given full parental rights as a separate person, and then go through the same process again to be jointly adopted by the parent’s partner.
Jsme fér argues that such a process could cause psychological stress for the child and the whole family. It would also create an administrative burden on the state and the courts.
Of the 176 MPs present, 123 voted in favour of the bill. It will now go to the Czech Senate, the upper house of the Czech parliament.
The result of the vote is seen as a compromise between liberal politicians, namely STAN (Non-Aligned) and Pirates (Greens/EFA), who demanded equal rights for same-sex couples, and conservative politicians such as ODS (ECR) and KDU-ČSL (EPP), who rejected such changes. Czech European Affairs Minister Martin Dvořák (STAN) wrote on X:
“I am upset that we have not achieved true equality! But we are not giving up, we will keep fighting. One day we will succeed.”
An opinion poll conducted by the CVVM agency last year showed that 58 per cent of Czechs believe that same-sex couples should have the right to marry, and an even higher number think they should be allowed to adopt children.
According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation, around three dozen countries in the world have made same-sex marriage legal since the Netherlands did so in 2001.
