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.

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.