The Croatian Parliament passed a law Tuesday legally recognizing same-sex unions. The law, passed 89-16, grants same-sex couples equivalent rights to married couples except they are barred from adopting children.
In December 2013, 65.8 percent of Croatian voters passed a constitutional amendment in a national referendum to define marriage as a union exclusively between a man and a woman.
The referendum, which also received support from 104 out of 151 parliamentarians, resulted in the country’s constitution being amended to exclude the possibility of gay “marriage.”
The grassroots group “In the Name of the Family” initiated the referendum with a petition of over 750,000 signatures in a nation of 4.4 million people, of whom 90 percent are Catholic.
The amendment drive received support from the Croatian Democratic Union and the Catholic Church as well as from Orthodox, Protestant, Muslim, and Jewish groups.
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However, the new legislation circumvents the change in the Constitution by calling same-sex unions ''life partnerships'' and not ''marriage.'' Life partnerships will be defined as a form of family, and protected by the country’s Constitution.
Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic, who proposed the legislation, said he and his left-leaning coalition government were determined to establish legal rights for same-sex couples.
Contact:
Zoran Milanovic, Prime Minister of Croatia
[email protected]