Poll of the Week: Are You For Civil Marriage in Lebanon?

After somewhat encouraging poll results regarding the death penalty in Lebanon, with some 63% being against it (I expected much less, in a country where “bil roo7, bil damm” is an everyday phrase!) Which shows that bit by bit, a sizable part of us (the young folks) are becoming more and more liberal.

Having civil marriages in Lebanon seemed like a farfetched dream in the fickle web of religious laws and courts in Lebanon. In a country where the politicians strive on sectarianism while pretending to be champions of secularism, basic rights like getting married to the person you love, are a luxury we have to travel abroad for. That’s of course if we want to have a balanced, pragmatic and modern marriage free from the archaic and obsolete traditions enforced by churches and mosques in Lebanon that allows them exceptional power and a very wide margin to extort money from their followers for “court fees” to settle a divorce for example.

This poll is to try and demonstrate that the brave move by a young couple to become the first to have a civil marriage in Lebanon, is one we all support and would like to become the norm for folks who choose the civil option for getting married versus the traditional religious kind.