Civil society activists on Monday held a protest in Downtown Beirut’s Martyrs Square to demand the legalization of civil marriage in Lebanon, an issue that has stirred controversy in the country.
“We [urge the clerics] to exclusively mind religious affairs and [not interfere] in people’s private choices,” the National News Agency quoted one of the activists as saying.
The same citizen said that the civil organizations “call for uprooting sectarianism from the [Lebanese’s] minds and the [political] texts.”
On the same day, another group of activists also staged a protest in front of the Justice Ministry to call for the immediate registration of Nidal Darwish and Khouloud Sukkarieh’s marriage, so that the Lebanese Constitution and laws would give the country’s citizens the right to marry in a civil ceremony.
Earlier in January, NOW had reported on the first marriage contract to be signed between a Lebanese woman and man according to civil laws and with the support of a civil society activist.
Several political and religious leaders have commented on the issue recently, including Lebanese President Michel Suleiman, who publicly stated his support for civil marriage a day after Lebanon’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani issued a fatwa against it.
However, despite a long-running campaign by civil society advocacy groups, civil marriage has till this day no legal basis in Lebanon, a country of around four million people whose population belongs to 18 different religious communities.
