Montenegro Plans to Legalize Gay Marriages

Montenegro's government on Monday announced that the country will allow same-sex marriages in the near future.

Jovan Kojicic, Human Rights Adviser to the Prime Minister, said Montenegro was drawing up the legal framework to permit same-sex partners to legalize their relationships soon.

Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic's adviser believes that there is a majority in parliament in favour of such a law.

"The process and drafting the law will last just as we planned in the government's LCBT strategy, no later than 2018," Montenegrin media reported him as saying.  

While human rights groups welcomed the announcement, the more socially conservative pro-Serbian opposition parties denounced the proposal.

The opposition Nova party on Monday called the plan "shameful and destructive of traditional and moral values. 

"The two gay parades held [this year] in Budva and Podgorica have already inflicted enough damage, and every new such move means pushing Montenegro towards classical immorality and disgrace," the party said in a statement.

The LGBT Forum Progres, a local NGO, on the other hand, said legalizing gay marriage would significantly improve the position of the small gay community in Montenegro.

The NGO also accused the Nova party of "openly spreading intolerance" and of worsening the marginalised social position of the LGBT community in Montenegro.

The latest European Commission progress report on Montenegro said that hate speech and violence against gays in Montenegro had increased since the July parade, demonstrating “a high level of homophobia in the country”.

However, unlike the situation in neighbouring Serbia, Montenegro's authorities have given full backing to the gay...