Despite stark differences in religion-nation bond, levels of religiosity, religious affiliation, religious practice, presence of religious education classes in public schools and in inter-generational transmission of a religious tradition (in all indicators, Lithuania is the most and Estonia the least religious), in all Baltic States there exist coalitions of religious and political actors that disapprove homosexuality and block effectively the extension of religious and legal rights for same-sex couples. The study assesses the interplay of religious and ideological, social and political commitments to traditionalist hetero-normative definition of marriage which enables religious institutions to maintain a disproportionate degree of authority in otherwise highly secularized social and political contexts.
