Asked whether they approved of a Law on Civil Partnership that would also allow legalizing relations between same-sex partners, 30 percent of the respondents answered positively, 65 percent – negatively, and the remaining 5 percent had no opinion on this issue.
Younger people appeared more inclined to favor the initiative – 52 percent of the respondents aged 18-24 and 48 percent of those aged 25-34 approved of such legislation. The rate of approval decreased in older age groups, for instance, the initiative won support from 29 percent of the respondents aged between 35 and 44.
The survey commissioned by LRT was conducted between April 19 and May 4. Norstat polled 1,100 respondents using a combination of a telephone poll (81 pct of respondents) and an online survey (19 pct).
According to LRT, the distribution of respondents in the survey was proportionate to the distribution of Lithuania’s population by gender, age and place of residence.
A group of Liberal MPs has recently proposed to legalize gender-neutral partnership.
The bill would define a civil partnership as "the fact of cohabitation of two persons (partners), registered in accordance with the procedure established by legal acts, for the purpose of establishing and (or) developing, and protecting the relationship of the partners".
The initiators say the law would put in place a model of registered gender-neutral partnership.
The draft partnership law has been included into the parliament's program for the spring session, but it has yet not been formally registered.
Currently, Lithuanian laws do not recognize either opposite-sex or same-sex civil partnerships. Several previous attempts by liberal politicians to legislate civil partnerships fell through at an early stage of the parliamentary process.