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Slovak referendum against gay rights fails on low turnout
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| Contributor | IndyGeorgia |
| Last Edited | IndyGeorgia Feb 08, 2015 12:51am |
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| Category | News |
| Author | Reuters |
| News Date | Sunday, February 8, 2015 06:50:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | (Reuters) - Slovak conservatives failed to cement a ban on gay marriages and child adoptions in a referendum on Saturday because the vote attracted far less than the minimum 50 percent of voters necessary to make it valid, partial results showed.
Votes counted from 87.23 percent of the central European country's voting districts showed turnout of just 21.07 percent, the statistics office said, far from the legal limit and well below expectations.
The EU member does not allow gay marriages or civil unions, nor adoptions by same-sex couples. The grassroots conservative movement that backed the referendum sought to strengthen those bans through a popular vote that would make it more difficult to change the legislation in the future.
The campaign was part of a conservatives' push in Eastern European countries, including Hungary and Croatia, against what they see as overly liberal policies spreading eastwards in the two decades since the European Union expanded to include former Communist states.
Around 90 percent of those who took part in the vote said 'yes' to the referendum's three questions: whether marriage can only be a union of a man and a woman, whether same-sex couples should be banned from adoptions, and whether children can skip classes involving education on sex and euthanasia.
Liberal elites, gay rights activists and part of the media advised voters to defeat the referendum by not taking part, a strategy that worked. |
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