SLOVENIA: Slovenia is to decide whether to allow homosexuals to adopt the children of their partners after a conservative group forces a national referendum on the issue.

Record ID: 277658

  • Title: SLOVENIA: Slovenia is to decide whether to allow homosexuals to adopt the children of their partners after a conservative group forces a national referendum on the issue.
  • Date: 23rd March 2012
  • Summary: SLATE INFORMATION
  • Embargoed: 7th April 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Slovenia, Slovenia
  • Country: Slovenia
  • Topics: Politics,Lifestyle
  • Reuters ID: LVA5QJA0I23D6ZFHZSPZQOHQDANL
  • Story Text: Slovenia will decide on Sunday (March 25) whether to allow homosexuals to adopt the children of their partners after a conservative group forced a national referendum on the issue.
    The previous parliament, dominated by a centre-left coalition, passed the new family law in June 2011 but the Civil Initiative for Family and Children's Rights challenged it, arguing that homosexuals should not receive adoption rights.
    By February the group, which enjoys the support of the Catholic Church, had collected the 42,000 signatures necessary for a national referendum.
    Opinion polls show voters are likely to narrowly endorse the law.
    Under the legislation, gay couples do not have the right to adopt children from a third party but conservative groups want it annulled because it allows homosexuals to adopt the children of their partners.
    "This family law equalises a partnership between man and a woman with a homosexual partnership. That is unacceptable for us. It also enables partners in homosexual relationships to adopt children and encourages surrogate motherhood which we think can pave the way for a trade in children. It also paves the way for a homosexual education in the school system," Ales Primc, head of the civil group which initiated the referendum, told Reuters.
    "This family law enables homosexual partners to decide to have a child. Nature did not give this possibility to homosexual couples and that is why we also cannot give them that right", he said.
    But gay activists say this would be the first serious change in the country's law over the past 30 years.
    "It is in line with the lifestyle we already have in Slovenia. It is not such a liberal law which would put Slovenia neck and neck with Spain, the Netherlands or Belgium, but more in line with Germany and we will only legalise certain situations some people are already in," gay activist and coordinator of the movement for the new law, Miha Lobnik said.
    The small Adriatic country which joined the European Union in 2004 is relatively tolerant of homosexual couples, who have been able to formally register their relationship since 2006.
    Last year a court sentenced three Slovenians to up to seven months in jail for attacking a gay activist in Ljubljana in 2009.
    Slovenians have rejected five laws in a row in referendums over the past 16 months, which paved the way for parliament to oust Prime Minister Borut Pahor's government in September.
    "I know a lot of (gay) people and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the same status as any man or a woman who has a child. A homosexual family functions the same way as any other family," Ljubljana resident Marko Skrlovaj told Reuters.
    But pensioner Ivanka Dempsar disagreed: "I think children will not be happy with this new law. They will be on the losing side of this. (Living with) two men, or two women. I would run away from such parents," she said.
    The new conservative cabinet of Prime Minister Janez Jansa, which took office last month after a December election, is not participating in the referendum campaign although three of the five coalition parties oppose the family law.
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