The left’s main problem today is that it may have won the war of words, but it has lost the battle of narratives. For example, almost no one uses the term “illegal immigrant” anymore, but measures designed to prevent migration are taken all the time, everywhere.
In Greece quite specifically, furthermore, few understood that equality in civil marriage (and we underscore the word “civil” in the hopes that it finally sinks in), is purely an issue of equal legal and civil rights: The state cannot issue administrative decisions based on an individual’s gender, skin color or sexual orientation. It cannot examine whether the legal union and the rights stemming from it concern Soula and Boula, Nikos and Eleni or Frixos and Yiannis. It would be like examining an application for a construction license not according to the criteria stipulated by building legislation but by who submitted the application. It’s not a stretch; just look at the United States, where people were once banned from certain neighborhoods because of the color of their skin.
All sorts of voices were heard with regard to same-sex marriage, many of them coming from illiterate ultraconservatives whinging about the “woke agenda.” There were also more moderate voices too, chiefly from the governing center-right New Democracy party, which argued that equality in marriage is a political matter, similar to raising taxes and slashing expenses. We heard some people say that they would not support Katerina Sakellaropoulou for president again because she “adopted a political stance” merely by being in the same room as people celebrating the ratification of the same-sex marriage bill. They fail to understand that there are no “positions” on questions of civil rights, just the Constitution, which clearly states that all Greeks are equal in the eyes of the law.
In politics, of course, things are rarely what they seem and never as presented by politicians. The threat of standing against the president may be about some older spat over ministerial appointments or a new “message” meant for the prime minister. They may want to see their leader in a difficult position, as underscored by former leftist leader Alexis Tsipras, who said that the prime minister needs to explain why he’s not renewing the candidacy of a person he chose in the first place. Is it an admission of fault?
Sure, the answer would be interesting to know, but what is the left actually doing? If SYRIZA, as was said at a meeting of the leftist party’s political secretariat, cannot convince the diehards of Crete’s mountains that same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue, how can it hope to win over others in tougher constituencies when it comes to more complex matters of equality?