Romania’s Coalition for Family gathers 825,000 signatures for Constitution amendment against same-sex marriage

Romania’s Coalition for Family, which includes 23 associations and NGOs, has gathered 825,000 signatures in support of an initiative to amend the Constitution to only allow the marriage between men and women. The announcement comes after Romanian Orthodox priests have startedgathering signatures to support the Constitution’s amendment in early-January. “40 county committees have been set up to organize and coordinate this gathering of signatures, which means that the Coalition for Family already has a strong local representation composed of people dedicated to this cause. Some 80,000 volunteers will continue to gather signatures under the coordination of these committees until the six-month period prescribed by the law will end,” said Mihai Gheorghiu, president of the initiative committee, cited by local Agerpres. Gheorghiu is also deputy general manager at the Romanian Peasant Museum and former state secretary within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “We have a definition of marriage in the Civil Code, which is made in these terms – the union between a man and a woman – and we have the current constitutional definition which speaks about spouses in generic terms. We basically want to harmonize the two definitions by including the definition of the Civil Code, article 258, in the Romanian Constitution,” he added. The initiative committee consists of 16 members of all religions, including Orthodox, Catholics, Greek Catholics, Baptists, and Pentecostals. According to data from the Coalition for Family, 13 European states allow same-sex marriage whereas the others recognize only the marriage between men and women. Moreover, five national referendums have been organized in Europe in the last four years on the marriage and family topic. Romania’s Chamber of Deputies rejects same – sex civil union bill proposal by overwhelming majority Comment: Constitutions, freedom and gay marriages Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com