Switzerland to allow same-sex marriage

Switzerland to allow same-sex marriage

A bill to this effect was approved by the country's bicameral parliament; eases gender change. Bill likely to sail through a general referendum

The seven-year-long wait of Switzerland's LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community got over with the country's parliament approving some sweeping changes in existing laws to allow same-sex marriages. A bill to this effect was passed by the country's bicameral parliament.

The National Council, the lower house of Parliament, approved the bill with 136 lawmakers voting in its favour and 48 against it, while the Council of States, the upper house, witnessed 24 votes in favour and 11 opposing it. The bill was put to vote on 18 December 2020, some seven years after it was first introduced.

Switzerland has thus become the 29th country of the world to allow same-sex marriage. The law, however, may have to wait until early next year to come into force with the conservative Christian Federal Democratic Union party announcing that it would seek a popular referendum on the proposed law. Under the Swiss rules, opponents will have to collect a minimum of 50,000 signatures within 100 days of the passage of the bill to trigger a referendum.

Pink Cross, a gay advocacy group, however, claims that they are not bothered by the prospect of the referendum since a survey commissioned by them in February 2020 showed over 80 per cent of Swiss support the same-sex marriage.

The bill had gone through several rounds of debate and changes over the past seven years before it was finally put to vote in the Swiss parliament. One of the features of the proposed law is that a lesbian couple can conceive using donated sperm and both the partners will have legal claim over the child thus born.

Switzerland has previously made provision for registered partnership between same-sex couples which had fallen short of the LGBT community's demand as it did not provide the same legal rights that a marriage provides.

Switzerland had lagged behind other western European countries in passing legislation to provide dignity and acceptance to its LGBT population with political institutions proving to be more conservative than its people.

Another significant, albeit contentious aspect of the bill, is to allow anyone who has reached 16 years of age to go in for sex-change surgeries without parental approval. This has made Switzerland the eighth European nation to allow a transgender to legally change gender without involving a doctor or seeking courts permission. This will enable transgender to change their gender on mere presentation of identity documents and making a declaration to this effect at civil registry offices. Under existing rules, both minors and adults have to apply to a court to change gender.

An elated LGBT community of the country while claiming that the proposed law will now enable them to join the social mainstream without any discrimination is confident that they will muster enough support to get it approved if it is put to a general referendum by the conservative groups.