Liviu Dragnea, the president of Romania's Social Democratic Party (PSD), said that a solution needs to be found for people of “different” sexual orientation. He made the statement as the Judiciary Committee of the Chamber of Deputies voted in favor of a citizen initiative aiming to change the definition of the family in Romania’s Constitution.

At present, the country's constitution defines the family as the free-willed marriage “between spouses” but the Coalition for Family, a local civic movement, wants to change it to the free-willed marriage “between a man and a woman,” to eliminate the possibility of same-sex marriages in Romania. The PSD is one of the parties supporting a referendum on this issue.

“We need to be realistic. Romania has a category of people with a different sexual orientation. You cannot turn away and pretend they don’t exist. Be they many, or few. So a discussion needs to take place to see what can be the right solution to allow this initiative [e.n. regarding the referendum] to run its course, but also have a solution for this category. It is not easy, but if we go through with the referendum and it gets validated, we don’t solve the bigger issue,” Liviu Dragnea said in a TV show on Antena 3, quoted by Adevarul.

He also said that the referendum needs to take place as the voice of 3 million people cannot be ignored.

The Coalition for Family, which comprises 34 local NGOs and associations, gathered last year 3 million signatures in support of this change of the definition of the family in the Constitution. Romania’s Orthodox Church also supports this project, which would block same-sex marriages.

“You cannot ignore 3 million people who said something. Then, who can decide if what they said can be written in the Constitution or not? Only the whole society, through a referendum,” the PSD president said.

Dragnea also argued in favor of a legislation change that would allow the Parliament to call a referendum. “The legislation should be changed: a mayor, the president of Romania can call for a referendum but not the Parliament, which is the supreme legislative body,” he said.

After the Judiciary Committee of the Chamber of Deputies voted in favor of the initiative aiming to change the definition of the family in Romania’s Constitution, this will go under discussion in the chamber. The same procedure will take place in the Senate. The proposal needs to pass with a majority of at least two thirds of the members of each chamber for the referendum for changing the Constitution to be organized

Love in the time of courts: Two men against the Romanian state

editor@romania-insider.com