Sensational shake-up in approval rankings as Lithuania s ruling parties shed popularity lrt.lt - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from lrt.lt Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Lithuanian parliament votes down gender-neutral partnership
BNS, LRT.lt2021.05.25 12:09
A couple during a pride march in Vilnius in 2020 / D. Umbrasas/LRT
The Lithuanian parliament has rejected a partnership bill that would have recognised same-sex unions.
The bill failed to pass the first reading with 63 MPs voting in favour, 58 voting against and seven abstaining.
Parliament Speaker Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen presented the bill, urging MPs to support it and “take the first step that we have been putting off for 20 years”.
However, most of the opposition groups voted against the partnership bill, including all members of the Labour Party group and the Regions Group, 21 one MPs of the Farmers and Greens Union, five social democrats and two non-attached MPs.
Opposition MP Valius Ąžuolas, of the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union, is facing disciplinary action after logging onto a committee meeting from Egypt.
Petition targets openly-gay Lithuanian MP for work on LGBT issues lrt.lt - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from lrt.lt Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
LGBT rights bare divide in Lithuania s liberal-conservative coalition
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Vytautas Mizaras / D. Umbrasas/LRT
The nomination of pro-LGBTQ+ candidate to Lithuania s Constitutional Court is baring fissures between liberals and conservatives in the ruling bloc.
Every three years, the parliament speaker, the president and the Supreme Court chair get to nominate one candidate each to join the Constitutional Court. The nominees then have to be approved by a majority vote in the parliament, Seimas.
Last week, Speaker Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, whose Liberal Movement party is a junior partner in the conservative-led coalition, proposed Vytautas Mizaras, a lawyer and professor at Vilnius University.