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When the civil marriage proposal was first made public 18 months ago, Cardinal Nasrallah Butros Sfeir, leader of the Maronites, the largest Christian group in Lebanon, said that while he did not oppose the proposal, he could not approve of it so long as Muslim religious authorities rejected it. "The law is either there for all Lebanese or for none," he said. Georges Dimas, a Greek Orthodoc priest at Notre Dame de l'Annonciation in Beirut, said that while "the church is not against civil marriage in itself, since it recognizes freedom of choice, I must admit that it does not make me happy to see young people choosing to get married outside it." Muslim leaders tend to be the most vocally opposed. "We cannot accept the marriage of a Muslim woman to someone who is not Muslim-this is our most important disagreement with civil marriage," said Sheikh Maher Hammoud, the Sunni leader of a mosque in the Southern coastal town of Sidon. "If the husband is not Muslim, she will take the ideas of her husband, who has the wrong ideas," he said. Despite the opposition of religious leaders, more and more couples are choosing a civil wedding abroad. "I have a lot of couples who go to Cyprus to get married, especially in the summer, when I have at least one a week," said Hassan Ismail from the Sogetour travel agency, which offers packages starting at $500 three-day wedding packages to Cyprus."Now, it is à la mode to do a civil marriage," said Ismail adding that the number of couples marrying in Cyprus has doubled in the past year. Although the majority of Lebanese still oppose civil marriage, attitudes vary by religion. In a 1998 survey, 29 percent of the Lebanese favored it, while 69 percent were opposed. Christians support it most --Greek Orthodox were the largest group in favor, with 61 percent, followed by Maronites at 56 percent-- but only 17 percent of Shiites and 10 percent of Sunnis approved, in a country where Muslims make up nearly 70 percent of the population. Next Page... ...Previous Page