Romania held a referendum over the weekend in an attempt to narrow the constitutional definition of a family to a man and a woman, but it failed beautifully after just 20.4% of registered voters turned up to vote.
They needed at least 30% voter turn out so the proposal was voided and the constitution will retain the current wording that dictates a family “is founded on the freely consented marriage of the spouses”.
A vote in Romania to restrict the definition of "marriage" to a union only between a man and a woman failed, after only 20% of people showed up to the polls. The change would have effectively banned same-sex marriage. pic.twitter.com/XykCyoM7Fu
— AJ+ (@ajplus) October 8, 2018
Unfortunately, in practice Romania still does not recognise gay marriage or civil unions, but at least this call for the country to actively support further legislation against marriage equality was not met with a resounding Yes.
It’s a surprising result after a poll on Friday indicated that the support for the change was as high as 90%. But even with voting time unusually stretched out to two days, they couldn’t get enough people out to validate the referendum.
The ‘No’ campaign (which is Romania’s version of Australia’s Yes campaign), encouraged people to boycott the vote on the principle that it was a violation of human rights, and clearly their risky strategy (likely combined with a general voter apathy) was successful.
There are now calls to change the legislation to officially recognise marriage equality in the wake of the vote, and it may well be on the cards after the constitutional court ruled in September that gay couples should have the same rights as heterosexuals.
Hate will lose. Change is coming. Get around it Romania.