Czechs Offered Another Chance to Duck Beneath the Rainbow Curtain

It's a chance, they argue, for Czechia to distinguish itself from the populist-conservative values that the likes of Vladimir Putin have weaponised and for the five-party centre-right governing coalition that took power in December to match its declared goal of reasserting Prague's commitment to liberal democracy with action.

The submitted bill is not the first bid to persuade Czechia to break through the rainbow curtain that divides Europe's post-communist countries from those to the west along the lines of equal marriage.

Legislation aimed at allowing same-sex couples to tie the knot managed to make it halfway through the three readings necessary to win approval in the 200-seat lower house Chamber of Deputies during the last parliament. But that bill ran out of time, and the new session that began in December has sent the effort back to square one.

"The last bill wasn't passed due to the election, but that doesn't mean that the need for it has gone away," declares Adela Horakova, a lawyer for Jsme Fer, an NGO campaigning for equal marriage.

Participants in fancy costumes take part in march during the Prague Pride parade in downtown Prague, Czech Republic, 10 August 2019. EPA-EFE/MARTIN DIVISEK Political imbalance

The Czech Republic is already among Central and Eastern Europe's most tolerant toward the LGBT community, and there has existed registered partnerships for same-sex couples since 2006. Although that status provides some legal recognition, same-sex couples still lack many rights that their heterosexual counterparts enjoy, including those connected to taxation, property and, most crucially, adoption.

These are issues that can often be obfuscated into complex legal arguments, but campaigners...