" 

  
 :::Oh now you understand that the referendum was not about the definition of marriage, but about the introduction of that definition in the Constitution. Its sole purpose was to ban, yes B-A-N, same-sex marriage, because in Croatia we have a significant percent of the population that is easily boiled up and mobilized when it comes to hate and discrimination, so the church and right-wing parties used that primitive material to spread hate and even more divide the citizens of Croatia, just because if there were no divisions and if in the political sphere we would talk about economy and things that are really essential to the development of the country, the right-wing would have no chance in gaining power and wining elections. So I, who live in Croatia, have seen the debates and statements before the referendum, and the ""ZA"" side (those who wanted the referendum to pass) were saying that ""Europe is dangerous and the center-left government will introduce gay marriage so we have to prevent that"" and so on, but all in the sense that they have to prevent marriage equality, of course they don't call that marriage equality but they say ""gay marriages"" of even worse ""fag marriages"". There is no doubt, even if the ""hidden"" intention was to mobilize the primitive right-wing, the result was a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.   "