Ruling Coalition initiates to determine marriage as unity of man and woman
By Tea Mariamidze
Wednesday, March 9
The political board of the ruling coalition Georgian Dream (GD) supported the draft of a constitutional amendment, which will define marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
The information was released by the Prime Minister of Georgia, Giorgi Kvirikashvili, on March 7, after the meeting of a GD political council.
“The Georgian Dream political board supports the initiative of determining marriage as unity of a man and woman in the Constitution,” stated the PM.
According to Kvirikashvili, the Republicans are against the issue; not in terms of the content, but the ways of its implementation.
The Prime Minister underlined that the coalition is against all kinds of discrimination and it has already been strengthened by the corresponding legislation.
‘We are putting forward initiatives to guarantee the protection of significant cultural values, such as marriage, at a constitutional level,’ he said.
The Republican Party said that no further changes are necessary, for under Georgia’s constitution it is obvious that marriage is union of only man and woman.
Parliament Speaker Davit Usupashvili of the Republican Party said that this constitutional amendment should only be initiated if “we are sure that the process can be finalized,” which is less likely in the current Parliament.
The United National movement (UNM) opposition party is going to support the initiative. However, they believe that this proposal is a ”purely political game” in light of the upcoming elections.
“I will support the draft, but everything is clearly written in the Georgian Civil Code. This is a purely political game,” Mikheil Machavariani from the UNM stated.
It should be noted that when initiating an amendment, at least 76 MPs are needed, and adopting any constitutional amendment requires the support of at least 113 MPs in the 150-seat Parliament. The GD ruling coalition has 87 MPs.
The GD government proposed the idea of introducing a constitutional bar to same-sex marriage in March 2014, along with a draft of anti-discrimination legislation.
According to the Article 36 of Georgian Constitution, marriage shall be based upon the equality of rights and the free will of spouses. The GD is planning to remove the word “spouse” and replace it with “man and woman.”
