The position of the New Left that it will vote “without asterisks” for the bill for equality in civil marriage was underlined by the president of KO, Alexis Haritsis during his intervention in today’s debate in Parliament, while criticizing the government for the “shortcomings” of the bill in relation to parenthood.

Referring to the struggles of the LGBTI community for equality, he emphasized that “the bill is a victory for this movement and thus it must be recorded, because it belongs to it”.

As for the government, he commented that he was forced to bring the bill to Parliament to “adjust to European policy and strategy for the LGBTI community, fearing new convictions by the Court of Justice of the EU and the European Court of Human Rights” and that she knew from the beginning that she would pass “not with her own, but with the votes of the progressive parties of the opposition”.

He even criticized the Prime Minister’s exhortation to “abstain” from those MPs who disagree, simultaneously commenting on his reference to the rule of law and accusing him of “instrumentalizing” the issue in order to “shake off” the “noise” of “condemnation” by the European Parliament.

“The self-evident right to equality cannot wash away the fact that Greece under your rule has collapsed institutionally” he said characteristically, referring to the individual issues of criticism such as the freedom of the press, the independence of the judiciary, transparency and freedoms, with “prime examples,” he said, “of the wiretapping and cover-up of the crime in Tempe.” He also criticized the government for “fearfully” bringing an “incomplete” bill to Parliament because “he doesn’t believe in it”.

Continuing, Al. Haritsis spoke of “unthinkable things” heard in the Parliament hall that “recall other times” and serve “obscurantism”, “intolerance” and “racism”.

“And in all of this, the government is not without responsibility. Because the government today defends – and rightly so – the rights of LGBTI people in marriage and at the same time it also defends the right of intolerance to thrash freely. On the TV windows, in the stadiums and in the public sphere, even inside the Parliament”, he underlined.

In fact, responding to the arguments of those who reject procreation for same-sex couples, he referred to the findings of the scientific community that it does not appear “from anywhere that the sexual orientation of the parents affects the mental health” of the children, but the “stability of the family environment”, the “socio-economic status” and “social stigma”.

Therefore, he emphasized that “it should be made clear that the family is not threatened by the legalization of same-sex couples”, but by “poverty”, the “absence of a welfare state” and “neoliberalism” in general. “The psychosocial development of our children is not threatened by gay parents but by far-right hate preachers,” he added, noting that “today we should be talking about the fight against discrimination, the fight against homophobia – which reaches school bullying and is connected with delinquent behaviors of minors at the expense of their peers”.

Referring to the “shortcomings and problems of the current bill”, he commented that it “takes a step towards marriage equality, but continues to exclude same-sex couples from the possibility of starting a family and having children using medically assisted reproduction and surrogacy”. , noting at the same time that the New Left has taken into account “the criticism of feminist organizations regarding the parenthesis” and that it submitted an amendment to “stricten” the conditions “for the granting of judicial permission to obtain a child through surrogacy”.

However, Al. Haritsis stated that “the New Left supports today’s bill without asterisks”, stressing that it does not play “small party and petty political games on the backs of our fellow citizens” and accusing the prime minister of such “games” in the past when SYRIZA voted for “the legal recognition of gender identity”.

“We do not play with human rights. That is why today we vote in favor, as we have stated from the beginning. We vote for same-sex equality in civil marriage. We are voting to grant equal rights to children raised in families by same-sex couples,” he underlined, adding that the New Left supports this bill and why “its defense is a critical moment in the battle against ultra-conservative and far-right voices that poison the public sphere and in our country”.