In Georgia they failed to collect 200 thousand signatures for one-gender marriage referendum

The Central Election Commission of Georgia has nullified registration of the issue presented by the Initiative Group for one-gender couple marriage referendum. It is reported by Interfax.

Such decision was taken since the Initiative Group failed to collect the required 200 thousand signatures within 3 months under the law for the Commission to consider this issue and then to submit it to the President of Georgia.  

Georgia’s President Georgiy Margvelashvilli gave his opinion on the matter, having declared that one-gender marriage topic is artificial. Under the Presidents evaluation, 99,9% of the population in Georgia believe one-gender couples are inappropriate and it is enshrined in the regulations, while the Parliament is unanimous in this respect.

In the current wording of the Constitution there is a provision “marriage is founded on legal parity and good will of spouses”. The Civil Code, in its turn, specifies that “marriage is a voluntary union of a man and a woman” which forbids making a marriage between same-sex individuals.   

According to the Explanatory Memorandum to the draft law, despite the fact the article mentioned of the Civil Code conforms to the constitutional norm, “with a view to preventing wrong interpretation” it is expedient to introduce into the Constitution a “more clear and distinct” definition in order to allay “questions and fears with the society at large which relate to the precise definition of marriage and family in the Constitution and Civil Code”.   

It will be reminded the initiation of constitutional amendments regarding the definition of marriage caused an ambiguous response in Georgia. In particular, there was set up an ad hoc Commission in the Parliament, which held meetings with the population in all regions form 25 March to 15 April, and made discussions of the amendments, proposed by the deputies from “Georgian dream”, to the Constitution on marriage issue.  

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