Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is working to consolidate his conservative voter base ahead of next summer’s election with proposed constitutional amendments that would expand the right to wear headscarves in public and prohibit same-sex marriages.
The move is intended primarily as political stagecraft, as the ruling coalition, led by Erdogan’s AK Party, doesn’t have enough votes to pass the amendments. But then, there isn’t any practical need to pass them.
Even if the amendments did get the votes needed to pass parliament, they would only enshrine the status quo in the constitution. Turkish civil law doesn’t specifically ban same-sex marriages, but it does define marriage as an arrangement between “a man and a woman.” Moreover, all limitations on wearing headscarves in schools and government buildings were lifted over a decade ago.
