Spain's parliament yesterday approved a controversial new law allowing gay couples to marry and adopt children, flying in the face of furious opposition from the Roman Catholic Church.
Spain, which has around 4 million homosexuals according to gay associations, thus becomes Europe's third nation to legalize same-sex marriage after the Netherlands and Belgium.
Spanish deputies approved the text by a majority of 187 votes out of 350, with 147 voting against and four abstentions.
The bill put up by the Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, will now be signed into law by King Juan Carlos and come into force this summer.
"In strict application of an electoral pledge, Spain today now recognizes the right to marriage between persons of the same sex," Zapatero said before the vote.
"We are not the first to adopt such a law but I am sure we will not be the last, many other countries will come after, pushed by two unstoppable forces, liberty and equality" he declared.
"We are not legislating for foreign or distant peoples, we are increasing the chances of happiness or our neighbors, our friends, our work colleagues, the members of our family.
"It is true that [homosexuals] are only a minority but their triumph is a triumph for everybody, their victory makes us all better, makes our society better," he told the house.
The legislation has been bitterly opposed by conservatives in the influential Roman Catholic Church and the rightwing opposition Popular Party, whose leader Mariano Rajoy warned after yesterday's vote that "the issue will divide Spanish society."
An estimated half a million people, including many bishops, priests and nuns, turned out to demonstrate against the new law last Saturday in central Madrid, while almost as many attended a rally which the gay community billed as a counter-protest.
The protest was organized by the Forum for the Family, Spain's association of pro-Catholic pressure groups, which claims to have collected more than a million signatures against the legislation demanding a referendum on the issue.
Anti-gay marriage groups had already previously collected half a million signatures opposing the bill when it was approved on its first reading in April.
However polls have showed that around three-quarters of the electorate in fact support the government's liberal agenda, even if most Spaniards describe themselves as Roman Catholics.
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