In the Czech Republic, same-sex civil unions have been legal since 2006, with a wide range of rights associated with this legislation.
Today, however, this is not enough–as it never is with LGBT lobbyists–and on June 7 a motion was introduced in the lower house of the Parliament that aims to amend the Civil Code and make same-sex “marriage” legal in the country. It has not yet been determined when the motion will be voted on, but in any case, already the next day President Miloš Zeman said he would veto it, although this may not be decisive given the favorable opinion of the majority of parties in the House of Representatives.
Currently, same-sex couples in the Czech Republic can enter into an official partnership and enjoy certain rights, including inheritance and health and prison benefits, similar to those of heterosexual married couples. On the other hand, recently proposed amendments would provide additional rights, including the sharing of joint property, survivor pensions between cohabitants, and access to alternative family care. Especially symbolically, they would give the license of equality to same-sex and heterosexual couples.
Again, as in other countries, the issue is only peripherally about property or money, but rather it is increasingly being played out on a different field: that of child adoption.
In fact, the motion takes off from the story of a famous Czech snowboarder Šárka Pančochová, who adopted a child in the USA, where this is legal. The girl is actually a daughter of Pančochová’s “wife,” who is a U.S. citizen, but she would have lost parental rights if she had returned to the Czech Republic, where homosexual adoption is not allowed, albeit this is a case of international adoption by same-sex couples. In December, an amendment that would have made this mode of adoption legal failed to pass in the Czech Senate.
According to the Bible of LGBT+ Claims, i.e., the map of rainbow “rights” monitored by the activist organization ILGA Rainbow Europe, the Czech Republic ranks rather low on the rainbow map, with a 26% share, and is behind, for example, Slovakia and Hungary. Italy, which is at 25%, is still be below the Czech level.
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