Once again the Romanian government has taken steps to define that family/marriage can only be established by a man and a woman, thus barring gay/lesbian marriage. This time however, they are taking the measure by allowing a referendum to revise the Constitution to take place (source: NBC News)
So it looks that for lesbian or gay expats and locals alike, the only choice to have a civil union will be to go to another country.
I personally would expect the referendum to go towards disallowing LGBT marriages, given the influence of the Orthodox church in Romania, and the sheer numbers of elderly people with aligned beliefs that typically vote. To me, it's disappointing that the Romanian government continues to ignore world trends and progression in aspects like this.
Are there any expats here affected by this potentially? Your thoughts? (Please, while this topic is rooted on politics and religion in my opinion, let's not debate as political/religious debate is not permitted here, and stick perhaps to the human rights and expat life aspect of the news).
Thanks
Romaniac
Expat.com Experts Team
Same sex marriage? Not in Romania!
While it doesn't affect me personally, I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine who, legally married in his home country to his same-sex partner, was trying to work out how this would affect a move to Romania, which he was considering at the time. As his partner wasn't an EU citizen, his question was whether he (the partner) would be given residence rights in Romania as a spouse. This is, I suppose, one area where the freedom of movement act for the EU needs clarifying. I imagine this could be an issue for many same-sex couples where one partners is an EU citizen and the other isn't.
Maykal wrote:While it doesn't affect me personally, I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine who, legally married in his home country to his same-sex partner, was trying to work out how this would affect a move to Romania, which he was considering at the time. As his partner wasn't an EU citizen, his question was whether he (the partner) would be given residence rights in Romania as a spouse. This is, I suppose, one area where the freedom of movement act for the EU needs clarifying. I imagine this could be an issue for many same-sex couples where one partners is an EU citizen and the other isn't.
In short, no. Residence rights would/will not be given. It is up to each member state whether or not to recognize same sex marriages. The following link/PDF explains the details pretty clearly.
https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/fil … ion_EN.pdf
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