“What the prime minister said is in the right direction”
In the bill concerning marriage of same-sex couples focused during an interview with Mr George Kapoutzidis on Thursday (11/1) while commenting on what the Prime Minister announced on Wednesday (10/1). “At the end of the day, what we have to keep is that it’s an issue that’s moving forward and it’s an issue that he seems to want to move quickly and that’s extremely important. This is the most important of all,” he said.
Speaking on Proto Program 91.6 and 105.8 and on the program “Morning Routes on Proto” with Maria Georgiou and Vassilis Adamopoulos, he referred to the example set by Mr. Mitsotakis yesterday for the same-sex couple with a child, who is at risk of being institutionalized if his cancer-stricken mother dies, because her partner is not legally the child’s parent. Pointing out that “there is no bigger lie than that everything has been resolved with the cohabitation agreement”, Mr. Kapoutzidis emphasized that the issue is equality.
“There are families – because it started from these families – who are honestly suffering for 15, 16, 17, 18 years waiting for a piece of paper that can cover their child. And to cover them as well. And right now that paper seems to be closer than ever. This is the number one news and the most important of what happened yesterday,” he said characteristically, stressing that what the prime minister announced is in the right direction.
“At the end of the day, that’s what counts. I might have expected to hear something more or something better or a more supportive speech for LGBTI people, because we’ve suffered a lot and heard a lot of obscenities, a lot of swearing, a lot of derogatory, a lot of insults and a lot of belittling comments from a lot of people lately and I was hoping it would help put an end to this. Perhaps, of course, because he was somewhat moderate and calm, he might eventually help and wanted to tone down the tone and already said that the goal is to get along. So, maybe with a second reading we can achieve this too” added the actor.
“We want equality”
“And let’s say something else, because we hear many times nature says this, says the other. We are not going to change nature here, no one will go with their partner and say hello, we have two sperm, I want to have a child. A child is always made with one sperm and one egg. That won’t change. This is nature’s way and it will continue to be so. But nature did not create marriage. Marriage is a construct that man made and by making it he decided to exclude some people from it” pointed out Mr. Kapoutzidis.
Equality, he stressed, is a very important issue. “People don’t want it LGBT people the wedding because they all want to go and get married. We want equality. When you treat me, when you give me less rights as a human being, it means that you are treating me as an inferior citizen. And if you as a state treat me as an inferior citizen, you give the okay to your citizens to treat me as inferior as well. This is the result. Insults, obscenities, attacks, murderous attacks, all these arise because the state itself has placed us in the beta category of citizens,” he emphasized.
On the political side of the issue, Mr. Kapoutzidis was asked about the possibility that progressive parties that have promoted such issues on their agenda will ultimately not vote for the bill that will come, at a time when there are several disagreements within the ND.
“All parties must work together”
“This is not right at all and we must help the prime minister. And indeed the Prime Minister has a problem within his party and the thumbs up he deserves is, I may have seemed a little less enthusiastic at first for what I heard, that although he knows he has a problem within his party, he is moving forward with it. Everyone should vote for it. The parties must work together and we must be united in this. And it is very important that everyone votes for it, and I will include the KKE as well. There are three far-right parties, we don’t need them. I especially do not want their vote at all.
Really not at all, say no, it doesn’t concern me at all. I’ll be embarrassed if someone turns around and says yes. But everyone else has to work together. They must understand that above petty political interests, above percentages, we are talking about human lives, we are talking about dignity. We are talking about the things that have been deprived, important things, essential, oxygen for a human being and that the LGBTI Greek citizen is deprived of these things and they must vote Yes. Anyway, as I usually say, our flag is colorful, the LGBTI flag that has the colors of the rainbow, so we need all the colors and the green and the blue and the red and the orange and everything,” said Mr. Kapoutzidis.
Regarding the communication he had with the Prime Minister on the specific issue, which was recently publicly mentioned by Giorgos Kapoutzidis, he pointed out that as Mr. Mitsotakis’ speech started yesterday on the specific issue, it was “like a continuation of this discussion”.
“Because in essence, what we had discussed since then, he had said that this is what I would really like to do in my term. And even then he seemed to be aware of the issues and he seemed even then to be particularly sensitive to the families and children that were already there. In essence, it was, as his speech began, a continuation of this discussion. He did not call me to advise him. I am not an adviser to the Prime Minister. I had asked a question once, because I am the person with the least rights and he wanted to answer me by himself” he described concluding.
