Plan for Same-Sex Unions Rouses Fury in Montenegro

Moves to legalise same-sex unions in the Balkan country under restricted conditions have angered socially conservative groups as well as LGBT activists.

The 2017 Pride Parade in Montenegro called for the law on same-sex unions. Photo: BIRN.

Montenegro’s hardline and influential Serbian Orthodox Church and conservative opposition parties have condemned plans to allow same-sex marriage in Montenegro – while LGBT organisations say the proposed law gives them too few rights.

Montenegro’s Human and Minority Rights Ministry has drafted a law on registered partnership in a new attempt to legalise gay marriage, causing a heated debate on social media, with comments mostly opposing the idea.

Under the draft law, same-sex couples will be acknowledged as legal unions but won’t have the same rights as married males and females.

They will not be allowed to adopt children or be foster parents, for example, which human rights organisation says restricts LGBT rights, and same-sex couples will also not be recognised as a family.

The Queer Montenegro NGO also warned against the abuse of the proposed law for political purposes, particularly ahead of local elections in Montenegro.

“For politicians and MPs, who should represent all citizens equally, it is unacceptable… to use LGBTIQ people, as well as other social groups whose human rights are threatened, to accomplish their ambitions,” the NGO said on Wednesday.

The Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro and the strongest opposition alliance, the Democratic Front, object to the draft law for completely different reasons.

The pro-Russian Front said that if the law was adopted, it would wreck family life and Christian values in Montenegro.

“This is definitely a topic [that is being forced on people] and the final project of the NATO Pact in breaking down the basic cell of the society, the family, and all the traditional Christian values of Montenegro,” a Front official, Miodrag Besovic, said on Monday, repeating his party’s bitter objections to Montenegro’s recent accession to NATO membership.

Besovic said that same-sex unions have no place in Montenegro, with its deep Orthodox Christian traditions.

The Serbian Orthodox Church has also slated the law, saying it would be a major step towards the destruction of the family and the moral overthrow of Montenegrin society.

Its leading bishop in the country, Metropolitan Amfilohije, said same-sex unions or registered partnerships, the term used in the law, would be the same as marriages, and wrong for Montenegro.

“The question arises as to what the ‘love’ propagated by the LGBT population is? Only that love that gives is a true love,” he said.

Montenegro planned to legalise gay marriage in 2014 but that first attempt failed.

Homosexuality remains a hot issue in the socially conservative country, as it does elsewhere in the Balkans.

Earlier surveys have suggested that 71 per cent of citizens in Montenegro consider homosexuality an illness, and that every second citizen agrees that homosexuality is a danger to society and that the state should suppress it.