A strategy to legalize civil marriage

Khouloud Sukkariyeh and Nidal Darwish, two seemingly ordinary people in love, became overnight the poster children for the fight to legalize civil marriage in Lebanon, an uphill fight the positive outcome of which is still far from assured. Travel agencies, the clergy and even the municipalities of Nicosia and Larnaca can feel safe knowing that Lebanese of different religious denominations, persons of limited financial means and agnostics and atheists will still need to take the 40-minute flight to Cyprus (or alternatively the slightly longer flight to Turkey) to get married in a civil ceremony. However, if well leveraged, what Sukkariyeh and Darwish were able to do has far-reaching ramifications that can have greater impact than finding a legal loophole that can easily be shut. To their credit, Sukkariyeh and Darwish succeeded in publicizing their case and in placing the issue on center stage, aided considerably by a social media frenzy