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Slovenia legalises same-sex marriage, adoptions

The Slovenian parliament codified same-sex marriage and adoptions into law by passing changes to the Family Code by 48 votes in favour and 29 against on 4 October, capping decades of efforts by LGBT+ groups and activists to end discrimination and be recognised as equal members of society.

The changes define marriage as a union of two persons and allow same-sex partners to adopt children under the same conditions as those that apply to married couples.

Drafted by the government, the bill was passed two months after the Constitutional Court, in a landmark ruling, declared it unconstitutional to define marriage as a union of a man and a woman and to prevent same-sex partners to adopt.

The decision took immediate effect and same-sex partners have been allowed to marry since it was announced, but the court ordered the National Assembly to remedy the legislation in six months.

It also underlined that the decision does not diminish the significance of traditional marriage as a union of a woman and a man and does not change the conditions or legal ramifications of marriage for heterosexual couples.

Coalition MPs supported the bill unequivocally, whereas the conservative opposition, the Democrats (SDS) and New Slovenia (NSi), stood by well-known conservative policy positions.

Slovenia has a long history of battles for LGBT+ rights and was famously liberal among Eastern European countries after homosexuality was decriminalised in Yugoslavia in 1977. But after independence, progress was slow.

It took until 2006 before same-sex unions were legalised, giving same-sex coupled limited rights regarding social security and inheritance.

But this was followed by years of legislative back-and-forth and several referendums by conservative groups affiliated with the Catholic Church that effectively thwarted marriage equality, until parliament legalised same-sex partnerships in 2016 giving same-sex couples all rights except adoption and in vitro fertilisation.

And this is the law that a same-sex couple successfully challenged at the Constitutional Court six years later.

Barbara Rajgelj, a prominent LGBT+ rights activist and legal expert, says the changes to the Family Code passed now have "ended a period in which equality between couples of the same and opposite sex preoccupied a very large number of people on both sides."

"For me personally the decision is precious ... primarily because I will no longer have to deal with these imposed social issues. In a way the story has been wrapped up, personally and socially. But of course the end of the legal battle does not end all anxiety and discrimination in everyday life," she told Delo newspaper.

In the EU, 13 countries have so far legalised same-sex marriage: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.

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