Romanian Same-Sex Marriage Case Could Affect Several European Union Countries

Within the European Union, 13 countries currently recognize same-sex marriage, 9 additional nations offer civil unions or a similar legal status but 6 countries have no legal recognition of same-sex couples.

That could change soon as the European Union's highest court is looking at a case brought by a Romanian man's desire to live in his home country with his husband of 7 years.

One of the fundamental principles of the EU is to provide the citizens of the bloc’s member states and their family members the right to move and freely reside across the region, subject to certain conditions.

But when Adrian Coman and his American husband, Claibourn Robert Hamilton, sought to move to Coman's home country of Romania, the authorities there refused to recognize their relationship in regards to legal residency for Hamilton.

Should the court rule in their favor, it could effectively force Romania and the other five non-marriage-equality nations residency and working rights as long as one member of the couple is a citizen of a European Union country.

In a country of 20 million Romanians, 3 million signed a 2016 petition calling for the constitutional definition of marriage to be defined as between "one man, one woman." A referendum on the issue could be held as soon as next year.

So this decision by the high court will be especially timely.

Stay tuned.

(source)