Political parties often do not address LGBT rights in their electoral programmes. The Pirates and the ČSSD promise marriage for all
"Hundreds of thousands of LGBT+ people do not have the opportunity to marry. This reduces their dignity and equality in society. Along with their children, they also lose legal protections. Their status as second-class citizens prevents them from living their lives with dignity and developing their potential for society," the opposition bloc says in its programme promising to introduce same-sex marriage.
However, the coalition also states on this point that individual MPs will have the option of using the so-called conscience clause or presenting an alternative solution. This compromise amendment was added to the programme mainly at the instigation of the more conservative part of the Mayors, led by former STAN chair Petr Gazdík, who had earlier initiated a counterproposal that would define marriage in the constitution as the union of a man and a woman. But that is not all the coalition promises on the topic of LGBT rights. If the Pirates and Mayors are successful, they will also abolish compulsory sterilisation for gender reassignment, which the Czech authorities require despite a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights. They also promise to simplify the choice of names and surnames, or to push for the modification of risk factors that restrict blood donation so that the riskiness of behaviour is not judged by the sex of the sexual partners of potential donors. Pirate and STAN MPs want to resolve all this within a year of the autumn elections.
The extra-parliamentary Greens and the small radical party Levice have a similar agenda on LGBT rights. In the last item of their programme, the Social Democrats also promise to introduce marriage for same-sex couples. "Children are not entitled to alimony, orphan's pensions or automatic inheritance from one parent, for example, and in the event of the death of their biological parent, they are not assured that their other parent will continue to care for them," we read in the Social Democratic Party's election programme. The Social Democrats have long been split on the issue of same-sex marriage. While President Hamáček himself was a co-sponsor of a proposal that would allow homosexual marriage, other ČSSD MPs have come up with the aforementioned counterproposal for a constitutional ban.
The centre-right opposition tri-coalition SPOLU (ODS, the People's Party and TOP 09) announced in advance when drafting its programme that it would not agree on the issue, would not modify it in any way and that its MPs would eventually have a free vote. In the opposite direction is the right-wing populist SPD movement of Tomio Okamura, which promises to enshrine in the constitution a definition of marriage and parenthood as a relationship between a man and a woman. "We will actively fight against the legislation of progressive ideologies (genderism, feminism, LGBT and many other "isms") and social engineering," the group declares.
