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One of the first to benefit from the new law would be Lio Emmanouilidou, a 43-year-old teacher, who plans to marry her long-term partner in Thessaloniki on March 8, which is International Women\u2019s Day. She said she was excited about the wedding and welcomed the bill as \u201ca step in the right direction and a big victory for the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
She lamented, however, that even with its approval, her partner would still face a \u201clong and expensive\u201d adoption process \u2014 costing about 3,500 euros, or $3,750 \u2014 to become a legal guardian of Ms. Emmanouilidou\u2019s 6-year-old son, whom the partners have raised together as a family. (Under the new bill, both members of a married same-sex couple would automatically be legally recognized as parents of children the pairs give birth to or adopt.)<\/p>\n
Ms. Emmanouilidou also said she felt unnerved by the opposition to the measures. But she said that, in her experience, most Greeks accepted same-sex couples and that her school and community treated her family as any other.<\/p>\n
\u201cSociety is much more ready for this than we think,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Yet in a country that remains one of Europe\u2019s most socially conservative, where the traditional family model is still predominant and the influential Orthodox Church views homosexuality as an aberration, the measures have met some pointed resistance.<\/p>\n
The Holy Synod, the Greek Orthodox Church\u2019s highest authority, argued in a letter to lawmakers this month that the bill \u201cabolishes fatherhood and motherhood, neutralizes the sexes\u201d and creates an environment of confusion for children. Clerics echoed such sentiment in sermons across the country in recent weeks, and some bishops said they would refuse to baptize the children of same-sex couples.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Church groups also joined forces with far-right parties to hold rallies in Athens and other cities to oppose the changes. Last Sunday, hundreds of people staged a demonstration outside Parliament, with some holding banners that read, \u201cThere\u2019s only one family, the traditional one.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Opinion polls conducted in recent weeks depicted a Greek society split over the issues: In most of the surveys, half of respondents expressed support for same-sex marriage, yet most respondents also said they opposed allowing same-sex couples to adopt children.<\/p>\n
The bill also fueled dissent across the Greek political spectrum.<\/p>\n
In the governing New Democracy party, dozens of lawmakers, including a prominent minister and a former prime minister, argued that the legislation weakened the nuclear family and undermined traditional values. The leader of Greece\u2019s Communist Party, Dimitris Koutsoubas, told Parliament on Thursday that legalizing same-sex marriage would \u201cabolish the unity of motherhood and fatherhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the issue caused discord within Syriza, the main opposition party: Some lawmakers said the bill did not go far enough, others were loath to back a conservative government\u2019s bill on what they considered a liberal issue and some worried about winning support in rural areas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n