ATHENS: When Greek lawmakers voted to allow same-sex civil marriages, Yolanda Kalantzi and Georgia Ampatzidou joined other couples on Friday making plans for their big days.

The historic bill that parliament approved overnight also allowed same-sex couples to adopt children - another big step as Ampatzidou can now legally adopt their son.

“When we heard that the bill passed we were deeply touched,” said Kalantzi, who with Ampatzidou had travelled 500 km (300 miles) to be inside parliament for the vote.

The couple have already booked a DJ and a photographer for their May wedding.

“There is no return. I must have her,” she said of her bride-to-be. “I felt vindicated that I count,” Ampatzidou said of her legal right to adopt.

The vote makes socially conservative Greece one of the first Orthodox Christian countries to allow such unions.

“This is a milestone for human rights, reflecting today’s Greece - a progressive, and democratic country, passionately committed to European values,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said. He had urged lawmakers to pass the bill.

The law, celebrated by dozens of people on the streets of Athens but opposed by the Orthodox Church and many right-wing politicians, will take a few days to become official. That has not stopped couples, many who have waited years to get married, to make the first steps.

At home, the topic of same-sex marriage divides Greece, where the powerful Church and the right have long opposed reform. Residents of Athens expressed mixed opinions.

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2024