Slovak conservatives fail to cement gay marriage ban in referendum
Source: Reuters
Slovak conservatives fail to cement gay marriage ban in referendum
Reuters
Sunday 8 February 2015 00.00 GMT
Slovak conservatives failed to cement a ban on gay marriages and child adoptions in a referendum on Saturday because the vote attracted far less than the minimum 50% of voters necessary to make it valid, partial results showed.
Votes counted from 87.23% of the central European countrys voting districts showed turnout of just 21.07%, the statistics office said, far from the legal limit and well below expectations.
The EU member does not allow gay marriages or civil unions, nor adoptions by same-sex couples. The grassroots conservative movement that backed the referendum sought to strengthen those bans through a popular vote that would make it more difficult to change the legislation in the future.
The campaign was part of a conservatives push in Eastern European countries, including Hungary and Croatia, against what they see as overly liberal policies spreading eastwards in the two decades since the European Union expanded to include former Communist states.
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/08/slovak-conservatives-fail-gay-marriage-ban
Billboard depicting Pope Francis in Nitra, Slovakia, invites voters to the Slovak national referendum on the
protection of the traditional family. Photograph: Koller Jano/AP