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Greece has become the first Orthodox Christian country to legalise same-sex civil marriage, despite opposition from church officials.A cross-party majority of 176 lawmakers in the 300-seat parliament voted late on Thursday in favour of the bill drafted by the centre-right government of the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

The new law recognises parental rights for same-sex couples, but will not allow gay men to acquire biological children through surrogate mothers in Greece.

Opinion polls have suggested that most Greeks support the reform by a narrow margin and the issue has not triggered deep divisions in a country more worried about the high cost of living.The bill was backed by four leftwing parties, including the main opposition, Syriza.

Supporters, waving rainbow banners, and opponents of the bill, holding religious icons and praying, held separate small, peaceful gatherings outside parliament on Thursday.

But it does not put gay couples on the same footing as women who cannot have children for health reasons, who are allowed to have them through surrogate mothers.Maria Syrengela, a lawmaker from the governing New Democracy, or ND, said the reform redresses a longstanding injustice for same-sex couples and their children.“And let’s reflect on what these people have been through, spending so many years in the shadows, entangled in bureaucratic procedures,” she said.Objectors among the governing party included the former prime minister Antonis Samaras, from ND’s conservative wing, who opposed the law.“Same-sex marriage is not a human right … and it’s not an international obligation for our country,” he told parliament.

But that only conferred legal guardianship to the biological parents of children in those relationships, leaving their partners in a bureaucratic limbo.The main opposition to the new bill has come from the traditionalist Church of Greece – which also disapproves of heterosexual civil marriage.

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