From A Political Refugee From the Global Village
The constitutional amendment to redefine the family will fail because only about 20% of the Romanian electorate voted, even though most who voted will have voted in favour of the amendment. A turnout of 30% was required.
Marriage in Romania will continue to be between men and women because that is what the law says, even though the constitution does not require it.
I just saw some angry man called Fabio Luciani on the Euronews Facebook wall saying:
I just saw some angry man called Fabio Luciani on the Euronews Facebook wall saying:
"Why did the Western democracies allowed this illiterates [sic] get into the Union? This was nonsense. Certain standards concerning democratic values and respect for human rights should be met before joining."What, you might naively think, is undemocratic about holding a referendum? The referendum was held after 3 million Romanians (out of a total population of 20 million) petitioned for the definition of marriage to be changed from "between spouses" to "between a man and a woman". Holding a referendum after a petition gets such a large number of signatures seems very democratic, though other petitions also attracted enough signatures and have not yet been put to the vote.
The idea for the petition first came from a group called Campaign for Family Life but I do not know where they came from, and nor does anyone I speak to. The initiative did not come from the ruling post-Communist party and I don't think it was from the bishops. Before the referendum campaign the bishops rarely spoke about homosexuality, which was their way of showing toleration, because if they talked about it they would have to condemn it.
It was however backed by the Orthodox and other churches, including the Catholics, though the Pope said nothing.
It was however backed by the Orthodox and other churches, including the Catholics, though the Pope said nothing.
The idea for changing the constitution came up some years ago in Parliament and won broad support there, but the then Prime Minster shut down discussion of it, I imagined for fear of offending enlightened opinion in Western Europe.
Allowing voting to take place over two days instead of one was for some reason considered undemocratic too. I don't know who thinks up these complaints or how whoever they are understand 'rule by the people'.
Had 30% of the electorate voted this weekend this would have meant that the definition of marriage would be marriage between a man and woman, but this could have been changed back, after another referendum. This seems very democratic.
Or perhaps not because, for politicians as for Humpty Dumpty, words mean 'whatever I want them to mean'.
Why did the referendum fail?
When I came to live in Bucharest twenty years ago it seemed to me like Babylon and that homosexuality was the only sexual sin that shocked people.
In fact that was not true. Romanians are quite easily but not deeply shocked. They are very great believers in original sin and do not expect much from their fellow man. In those days, though, homosexuality was illegal and not spoken about. Now townies have become much more broad minded, even including church-goers.
Another reason the referendum lost is that it was proposed by the post-communist governing Social Democratic Party, which gets its votes from the peasants whom the Communists made into a rural proletariat, and from factory workers.
Having to have a referendum the ruling party took advantage of it as a way of distracting attention from the fact that the leader of the party is charged with various offences and the party keeps trying to find ways of releasing well connected people convicted of corruption, on the ground of overcrowded prisons. These attempts periodically lead to massive street protests. The government's unpopularity kept people at home.
And voting for the amendment seemed a vote against Europe and modernity - which no doubt it was - and in favour of the corrupt and unheroic past - even in favour of Vladimir Putin.
In Romania, as in America and Britain, all sorts of things get blamed on Mr. Putin.
And in a country where very many children live in great poverty and are too often ill treated or sexually abused this referendum, which cost EUR 38 million (how could it?), seemed to many or most people unnecessary, hypocritical.
And it was a sunny weekend and the vote was not along party lines or to form a government. Why not go to the park?
People in capital cities these days increasingly belong to a single international class, at odds with their compatriots in the provinces and countryside. New Yorkers and Californians fear rural conservatives and small town hicks, who do not have their sophistication, and the people of Bucharest despise the peasants.
This does not mean the people of Bucharest want single sex marriage - only 4% of Romanians do - and perhaps fewer want homosexuals to adopt children.
And Italy and Austria and Germany. And Brexit.
Allowing voting to take place over two days instead of one was for some reason considered undemocratic too. I don't know who thinks up these complaints or how whoever they are understand 'rule by the people'.
Had 30% of the electorate voted this weekend this would have meant that the definition of marriage would be marriage between a man and woman, but this could have been changed back, after another referendum. This seems very democratic.
Or perhaps not because, for politicians as for Humpty Dumpty, words mean 'whatever I want them to mean'.
Why did the referendum fail?
When I came to live in Bucharest twenty years ago it seemed to me like Babylon and that homosexuality was the only sexual sin that shocked people.
In fact that was not true. Romanians are quite easily but not deeply shocked. They are very great believers in original sin and do not expect much from their fellow man. In those days, though, homosexuality was illegal and not spoken about. Now townies have become much more broad minded, even including church-goers.
Another reason the referendum lost is that it was proposed by the post-communist governing Social Democratic Party, which gets its votes from the peasants whom the Communists made into a rural proletariat, and from factory workers.
Having to have a referendum the ruling party took advantage of it as a way of distracting attention from the fact that the leader of the party is charged with various offences and the party keeps trying to find ways of releasing well connected people convicted of corruption, on the ground of overcrowded prisons. These attempts periodically lead to massive street protests. The government's unpopularity kept people at home.
And voting for the amendment seemed a vote against Europe and modernity - which no doubt it was - and in favour of the corrupt and unheroic past - even in favour of Vladimir Putin.
In Romania, as in America and Britain, all sorts of things get blamed on Mr. Putin.
And in a country where very many children live in great poverty and are too often ill treated or sexually abused this referendum, which cost EUR 38 million (how could it?), seemed to many or most people unnecessary, hypocritical.
And it was a sunny weekend and the vote was not along party lines or to form a government. Why not go to the park?
People in capital cities these days increasingly belong to a single international class, at odds with their compatriots in the provinces and countryside. New Yorkers and Californians fear rural conservatives and small town hicks, who do not have their sophistication, and the people of Bucharest despise the peasants.
This does not mean the people of Bucharest want single sex marriage - only 4% of Romanians do - and perhaps fewer want homosexuals to adopt children.
The rulers of the EU fear rural Eastern Europe, but Romania is not another problem child for Brussels. Romanians are model democrats, in fact. The Euro-panjandrums can relax for a moment, before going back to worrying about Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Czechia.
And Italy and Austria and Germany. And Brexit.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are subject to deletion if they are not germane. I have no problem with a bit of colourful language, but blasphemy or depraved profanity will not be allowed. Attacks on the Catholic Faith will not be tolerated. Comments will be deleted that are republican (Yanks! Note the lower case 'r'!), attacks on the legitimacy of Pope Francis as the Vicar of Christ (I know he's a material heretic and a Protector of Perverts, and I definitely want him gone yesterday! However, he is Pope, and I pray for him every day.), the legitimacy of the House of Windsor or of the claims of the Elder Line of the House of France, or attacks on the legitimacy of any of the currently ruling Houses of Europe.