News

By Terry Vanderheyden

PRAGUE, February 17, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Czech President Vaclav Klaus has vetoed same-sex partnership legislation approved by the country’s parliament. The president deliberated over the issue for several weeks, after both the upper and lower houses of parliament approved the measure – the first of the former Soviet bloc countries to do so. The measure carried by a margin of 147 to 86 in the lower house.

The proposed law would allow same-sex partners to officially register their unions and grant them access to each other’s medical information as well as the right to raise but not adopt children. The bill also proposes inheritance rights and spousal support in the case of divorce.

“Even if I as president did not have a clear opinion, I would insist that such marked intervention in the legal arrangement of human and especially partner and intimate relations must be supported by a majority of deputies, or that at least 101 of them must vote in support of the law,” President Klaus said, according to a CTK report.

With a veto, the bill is now to go back to the Chamber of Deputies where it will require 101 votes out of its 200 members to override the veto. The ruling Social Democrats under Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek say they can muster all 70 member’s votes, but will depend on support from both the Communist Party and the Freedom Union coalition.