Prof. Landsbergis thinks that partnership will be legalised in Lithuania anyway

Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD) honorary chairman Vytautas Landsbergis thinks that, sooner or later, gender-neutral partnership will be legalised in Lithuania because it is a typical European practice – granting same-sex couples the ability to no longer have to hide Eglė Samoškaitė wrote in TV3.lt news portal.

“I believe that the Seimas will adopt the law sooner or later. Currently, there’s some flexing of muscles and boasting – look, we won, they lost. It’s not a very good sort of division, particularly when it’s within a single party,” the party patriarch believes.

The Seimas recently rejected an initiative to table a gender-neutral partnership law project already at the first stage. Based on the Seimas Statute, if the project is rejected at any stage, it can only be presented again no sooner than six months after the rejection.

The Freedom Party was particularly supportive of the partnership regulating legislative project, with the Liberal Movement also mostly backing it. However, the largest coalition partners – the TS-LKD – were divided on the matter.

The Christian democrat wing of the party had already announced previously it is against partnership and proposed to run a referendum on this matter.

Party honorary chairman V. Landsbergis was greatly critical of this idea.

“I do not know if I should recount kitchen stories, but I asked for the proposal of a national referendum to be retracted. […] I spoke against it, saying that it’s just a way to bury [the question]. These are familiar measures and we have decided otherwise and so, it would be best not to incite this chaos amongour ranks,” the politician recalled.

“It wasn’t that I went around trying to convince. I just said that I am specifically speaking about the alternative referendum proposal, that it shouldn’t be done, that it would be better if they retracted it themselves, but it appears they did not,” he said.

However, V. Landsbergis says he sees no massive drama because, according to him, sooner or later, such a law will be adopted in Lithuania.

“Almost all European nations have accepted this norm. This is the opportunity for same-sex couples to no longer have to hide. As for those, who are fighting against, they want for it to be concealed. People who have agreed to live together, who are satisfied and happy, they will continue to live together,” the party’s honorary chairman stated.

When asked if the partnership law project might be approved still in this term, the politician wasn’t certain: “We will see. People might become even more foolish, but they might also come to their senses.”

Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats member of parliament, Christian Democrat Union chairman Paulius Saudargas says that the referendum question has lost meaning because, despite the partnership law project being included on the agenda, the Seimas rejected it.

“The context is no longer there. We could think anew if a referendum is needed, if the nation should be consulted, but in terms of our specific proposal from that day, it no longer has context,” the politician stated.

TV3.lt reminds that gender-neutral partnership received the support of 11 members of the Freedom Party, 8 from the Liberal Movement, 33 from the TS-LKD, 6 Social Democrats, 3 “Farmers” and one member of the mixed Seimas members group. However, the votes against numbered 65 against 63 in favour and so, the project was rejected.

This question is of particular importance to the Freedom Party because it is one of its cornerstone electoral pledges.