When José Sócrates campaigned for another term as prime minister of the very Catholic-y Portugal, he surprised many by insisting he would push to legalize same-sex marriage. Sócrates, a socialist (ZOMG!!), won that election over the weekend. (Yes, the Portuguese vote on their days off work.) Which begs the question: Will he make good on his promise? The answer: It may not be up to him.
Sócrates won the gig without scoring a parliamentary majority — the equivalent of Obama winning the White House and Democrats in the majority in Congress, but having enough Republicans to keep ’em from getting everything they want. Which means that, despite his Socialist Party winning more seats than any other party, he faces an uphill battle when it comes to things like trimming spending and boosting public works projects. Oh, and bringing about marriage equality.
If re-elected, Sócrates in January told supporters he would introduce a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. And, by default, overturn its ban.
Then again, if Sócrates is anything like America’s president, campaign promises won’t matter. (That Obama is in his first term, and Sócrates in his second, might change things.) Particularly when Sócrates faces the anti-gay Social Democratic Party, which it now has to make nice with in Parliament in order to — you guessed it — stimulate the economy.
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joaobg
there’s a modern saying in portugal, originated in the mind of a very well educated stereotype soccer player: “prognósticos só no fim do jogo”. in english it could translate freely into something like “predictions, only at the end of the game”.
this aplies to this situatin fully. noone belives socrates will make good of his promise, as many people today (the election was yesterday) are saying he knew he wouldnt be able to do it on his own so he could promise all he wanted as he wouldnt have to upold his word afterwards.
the fact is this are historical times in our country. yesterday, for the first time, a gay activist was elected for parliament. there were a few gays there already, but all closeted.
having miguel vale de almeida in his lists, surelly gainned him lots of pink votes, just not enough to get were he wanted.
right wing extremists, totally against all things gay, are the party that grew the most, and are the ones he is going to have to negociate with to pass laws, so i think we are out again.
in his victory speach, socrates was surrounded with multicolored flags, in a clear sign of tipical american marketing (i dont know if you know, but he hired obama’s strategists for his campaign). the elected gay activist, gave a comment saying 60% os portuguese (the left votes) said yes to gay marriage, but thats just a wrong argument.
the way i see it, this government wont last a year.
(if you want, i have captions of the tv transmission of his speach)
Hmmm
Still, the fact that he could get elected running on a pro-gay marriage platform is impressive. I wish I could say the same about my country. (USA)
tavdy79
Portugal has unusual pressure on it that America doesn’t have to deal with – it’s a small nation (~10 million) whose immediate neighbour (Spain) has 4.5 times the population, and marriage equality. Italy and Eire are the only western-European nations (other than the microstates) with poorer recognition for same sex couples.
Also, most European states that have same-sex partnership recognition will recognise foreign civil unions and same-sex marriage, but not unregistered cohabitation (the system in use in Portugal) so unless they have a marriage/CP/RP etc. from another country, same-sex Portuguese couples have no marriage-related rights outside their homeland.
Miguel
I believe he’s going to do it and it’s going to pass. He doesn’t have a majority, but the Portuguese Parliament has a left majority in the house, and the leftist parties together with PS will definitely approve gay marriage. Plus, this was a very strong proposition of his, just like it was to legalize abortion, so, everything points to having it legalized.
Ben
The way I understood it, the smaller left-wing parties (the Left Bloc and the Communist-Green coalition) were the first to support a gay marriage bill, which the Socialists opposed. Now, the Socialists favor the bill, and between them, the three parties have a majority (just less than 130 seats out of 230). So why wouldn’t the bill pass? Is there a lot of Socialist opposition?
Robert, NYC
@tavdy79:
Same-sex marriages will only be recognized for what they are in only five countries in the EU, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Norway and Sweden. Elsehwere, take the UK for example, those foreign legal marriages are downgraded and recognized only as civil partnerships one a gay couple enters the UK. Greece and Italy are two of the worst offenders, excluding the equally homophobic baltic state EU members and Poland of course. Eire at least is heading towards civil partnerships. THe problem with the mish mash of different legal unions in the EU is the parity issue. You have the UK for example where civil partnerships confer all the rights of marriage without the name and say France, where PAC’s offer only a handful of rights. Imagine a civil partnered or legally married same sex couple living in France. They’d not benefit from all the rights they get in their home countries but would have to forego most of them because the French system doesn’t confer as many rights through PACs, just as an example. Its unfair and unequal, marriage is the only gold standard to rememdy the inequities.
The Cole
We cannot apply the US parameters to Portuguese or European politics.
Sócrates may have lied about some things the first time he was elected, but he did promise to legalise abortion… As some of you know, abortion is now legal !
Although he voted one year ago not to legalise same-sex marriage, he tried this year to expend the benefits of unregistered cohabitation partners… The problem is that the President (from the PSD, right) vetoed this law !!!! Of course, there are ways to overturn the veto… but it’s not very “cool” !
If the PS and the left parties vote in favour of same-sex marriage, it’s possible that they will encounter this problem again.
Miguel
To The Cole:
Yes, but the reason why the President didn’t approve that law is because there wasn’t enough of a debate before it was approved. If there is a strong debate about gay marriage and the majority of the left approve it (which they will!) the President has no constitutional grounds to veto it, cause it was debated and the majority of Parliament was for it ;P