May 17th, 2010
Anibal Cavaco Silva, the conservative President of Portugal, has announced that he is ratifying the nation’s marriage equality bill. (AP)
Vetoing the bill would only send it back to Parliament where lawmakers would overturn his decision, he said, adding that the country needed to focus on overcoming an economic crisis that has increased unemployment and deepened poverty.
The Socialist government’s bill was backed by all of Portugal’s left-of-center parties, who together have a majority in Parliament. Right-of-center parties opposed the measure and demanded a national referendum.
“Given that fact, I feel I should not contribute to a pointless extension of this debate, which would only serve to deepen the divisions between the Portuguese and divert the attention of politicians away from the grave problems affecting us,” Cavaco Silva said.
Portugal now becomes the eigth nation (the sixth in Europe) to recognize same-sex marriage.
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Paul in Canada
May 17th, 2010
…and on the heals of Papa Ratz’ visit – love those Portugese!
Burr
May 17th, 2010
And America continues to fail to live up to its billing..
Tommy
May 18th, 2010
Yes Burr, America tends to be a great idea on paper, less so in reality.
Eric in Oakland
May 18th, 2010
I can’t help but also notice that Italy and Ireland stand out on this map as islands of dark age morality and superstition amidst the rest of enlightenned Western Europe.
Timothy Kincaid
May 18th, 2010
Eric,
Ireland is in process and will likely soon enact law that will provide gay couples with all the rights of heterosexual marriage (the big debate was over whether their constitution would allow them to call it marriage).
Italy, on the other hand, is still in the thrall of the man with the fancy dress and red Gucci slippers.
Mark in Denmark
May 19th, 2010
Eric,
Bear in mind too that public opinion is changing very fast right across Europe on this issue, even in the former Commnunist bloc states.
Same-sex marriage legislation is likely to come in within 2 years max in Iceland, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Finland and Denmark. But also in France, Austria and the UK at the moment, there are increasingly loud demands for marriage equality, and the conservative religious lobby has nothing like the influence anywhere in Europe that it has in the US, so this may well become reality sooner than one might have thought.
I predict that within 10 years, all EU countries will have same-sex marriage. There is interchangeability of rights throughout the EU, and it won’t be long before people bring European Court cases claiming recognition of their marriages throughout the Union: such a judgement would lead to the laws automatically being brought into line immediately everywhere in the EU. No-one at all except the Pope is going to complain when that happens: in that respect, Europe is very different from America.
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