''It will make the invisible, visible''

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday that a bill granting same-sex couples equal rights in marriage would make their families “visible.”

The reform extends full parental rights to gay couples but will not allow for medically assisted reproduction through a surrogate. The vote is expected later Thursday.

“People who have been invisible will finally be made visible around us. And with them, many children will finally find their rightful place,” he told lawmakers during a debate on the draft legislation. “The reform makes the lives of several of our fellow citizens better, without depriving anything from the lives of the many.”

Mitsotakis said the bill would “put an end to an inequality” and “protect the self-evident rights of children.”

“The two parents in same-sex couples do not yet have the same opportunities, legally, to provide care for their children. To pick them up from school, to travel with them, to accompany them to the hospital,” he added.

The government is facing dissent from inside his party and needs opposition votes for the bill to pass.

Civil partnerships for gay couples were made legal in 2015 with conservatives at the time opposing the initiative, though Mitsotakis himself voted in favor. Promises to extend those rights were repeatedly deferred as the country emerged from a severe financial crisis followed by the pandemic.