Activists Rally for Civil Marriage in Downtown Beirut

Civil society activists, students and youth groups on Monday staged a sit-in at the Martyrs Square in Beirut to demand the legalization of civil marriage in the country, amid strict security measures by the army and the Internal Security Forces, state-run National News Agency reported.

Demonstrators carried banners that read “Towards a Democratic Civil Country that Respects Civil Rights” and “For a Civil Law that Ensures the Rights of Citizens and Allows Civil Marriage in Lebanon.”

“This gathering is a gathering of citizens seeking freedom, citizens who have managed to break the metal barrier between the two political camps in Lebanon,” Bahjat Salameh, a spokesman for the protesters, said in a speech at Martyrs Square.

“Today, Lebanese citizens belonging to these two camps have united with independents” to demand the legalization of civil marriage, Salameh added.

Another speaker, Roger Bejjani, called on clergymen to “take care of religious matters exclusively and to end their control over people's affairs and their personal choices.”

“We are the advocates of a revolution towards an actual, not theoretical, secular state, under the constitution. A warm salutation to Kholoud and Nidal, let them be the Mohamed Bouazizi (of Lebanon),” Bejjani added.

The controversy over legalizing civil marriage did not impede more Lebanese youths from taking this step as a new couple, Shaza Khalil and Tony Dagher, decided to tie the knot in a civil union, a step premiered last month by Kholoud Succariyeh and Nidal Darwish.

Lebanon's top Sunni Muslim mufti, Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani, has issued a fatwa against moves to legalize civil marriages inside the country, where couples of different faiths have to travel abroad to tie the knot.

The religious edict came a day after President Michel Suleiman tweeted that he would remain steadfast in supporting such unions, while Prime Minister Najib Miqati wrote on his Twitter account that a consensus was required to address the issue.

Qabbani issued the fatwa branding as an apostate any Muslim politician who approves civil marriage legislation.

But after meeting Suleiman on Sunday, Prime Minister Najib Miqati, a Sunni, tweeted in Arabic "the current circumstances do not allow us to address new controversial topics that create divisions."

The campaign for civil marriage in multi-faith Lebanon has gained momentum with a daring initiative to create new jurisprudence.

Kholoud Succariyeh and Nidal Darwish announced earlier this month they had wed as a secular couple by having their religious sects legally struck from their family registers under an article dating from the 1936 French mandate.

Suleiman has since lobbied for a civil marriage law as a "very important step in eradicating sectarianism and solidifying national unity."

Despite a long-running campaign by civil groups, civil marriage has no legal basis in Lebanon.

Former president Elias Hrawi in 1998 proposed a similar law, which gained approval from the cabinet only to be halted amid widespread opposition from the country’s religious authorities.

Lebanese authorities recognize civil weddings only if they have been registered abroad, and thousands of mixed-faith couples have traveled to nearby Cyprus or Turkey to marry.

Most religious faiths have their own regulations governing marriage, divorce and inheritance, and mixed Christian-Muslim weddings in Lebanon are often discouraged unless one of the potential spouses converts.