Christian Democratic Party leader Päivi Räsänen denies suggestions cropping up from within her party that she had been fooled by some of the others in the five-party coalition on the issue of same sex marriage.
The party’s former MP Bjarne Kallis wrote in a blog entry on Monday that the party’s participation in the upcoming government got off to an embarrassing start.
On Friday Räsänen had praised her future government partners for showing “tolerance” toward the socially conservative Christian Democrats by agreeing not to include any mention of gender-neutral marriage legislation in the government’s policy programme.
Since then, the leaders of two parties in the upcoming government, Ville Niinistö of the Greens and Paavo Arhinmäki of the Left Alliance have said that they would pursue gender-neutral marriage as a Parliamentary initiative, even though it is not part of the government programme.
As Kallis sees it, representatives of other government parties have been operating behind Räsänen’s back. The party veteran feels that Räsänen has been publicly humiliated and that mutual confidence among the ministers has suffered a blow in the very start.
Räsänen told the Finnish News Agency STT that she is quite aware that individual members of government parties can make independent initiatives. She feels that the main thing is that the initiative is not come a government proposal.
Räsänen, who is slated to be the next Minister of the Interior, also believes that there are MPs in other parties who also oppose same-sex marriage.
