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| - Lithuania's parliament on Tuesday rejected allowing civil unions for same-sex couples, a controversial proposition in the predominantly Catholic Baltic EU member state. Openly gay MP Tomas Vytautas Raskevicius was behind the legislative drive for the "Partnership law". It had won support from Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, but split her politically fragmented coalition. But the bill was defeated on first reading. "This is not the end. We will continue to work for change, for all people to be equal before the law, for no one to be on the margins of the society," Ausrine Armonaite, leader of the liberal Freedom party, said after the vote. Raskevicius had said before the vote that allowing "gender neutral" civil unions would be a huge step for the LGBTQ community in Lithuania -- "like crossing the Rubicon". The legislation aimed to grant LGBTQ and heterosexual unmarried couples legal benefits such as inheritance rights, joint ownership of property, procedural guarantees, the possibility to change the last name but stops short of adoption rights. Same-sex unions are not recognised anywhere in the former Soviet Union except for Estonia, another Baltic EU country. The moves had triggered protests in Lithuania, where a 2019 Eurobarometer survey found that 70 percent of respondents opposed legal recognition of same-sex unions, signalling some of the strongest opposition to gay rights in the EU. Earlier this month, thousands rallied against the legislation and other progressive initiatives by liberal MPs, saying they wanted to protect "traditional families". MPs opposed to the bill argued that it threatens to undermine how families are defined both socially and legally. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has said that any legal recognition for same-sex couples must be in line with the constitution, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Tuesday's planned vote is the first reading of the bill. saj/mas/dt/yad
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