‘A brilliant start’: gay Greeks eager for MPs to legalise same-sex marriage

Parliament is expected to pass bill on Thursday but the rancour it has caused shows country’s entrenched social conservatism

Viktoria Kalfaki can still vividly remember the moment she and her wife, Christina Leimoni, realised they would have to fight for their family’s right to exist. The couple, both senior tech company executives who had returned to Greece after years in London, were in hospital with their daughter.

“Niovi was two and sick with bronchitis,” said Kalfaki, who heads the public sector division of Google Cloud in Athens. “Naturally we both wanted to be with her but when the doctors asked ‘Who is the mother?’ and they heard ‘We both are’, their response was ‘That’s legally not possible’ and they refused to let Christina in. There was a terrible scene as she argued and implored but they were adamant. Only I, as Niovi’s birth mother, could be with her.”