Spain has become the third country in Europe to legalise gay marriage, with parliament also giving same-sex couples the right to adopt children.
The move by the Socialist government of this traditionally Roman Catholic country yesterday provoked the ire of the church, which has found itself increasingly at odds with the prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, since he took power a year ago.
A petition signed by half a million opponents of gay marriage had earlier been handed in to the parliament.
Mr Zapatero's Socialists won the support of several small parties as the bill was passed by 183 votes in favour, 136 against, with six abstentions in the 350-seat lower chamber. "This is a historic day for everybody who believes in equality, justice and rights," said Beatriz Gimeno, president of the country's Federation of Lesbians, Gays and Transexuals.
Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Islamic leaders, however, joined together yesterday to condemn the new law, which looks set to be rubber-stamped by Spain's upper house, the senate, before the summer.
Spain's Roman Catholic bishops have claimed the law brings "a danger of the weakening of the institution of marriage and, at the same time, of proper social order".
The phrase "matrimony shall have the same requisites and effects regardless of whether the persons involved are of the same or different sex" should now be added to Spain's law books. FULL STORY
What's your opinion about this? Anyone going to spain now to get married? Do you think this is progress? I think it's kind of scary when a socialist government is more advanced in civil rights then the United States. What do you think?
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