With so much positive news for the LGBT community happening over the past few days (and the country as a whole—hello, four more years of Obama!), it can be easy to overlook amazing news happening in other countries. But we absolutely shouldn’t do that, because Spain has also had an incredible week when it comes to marriage equality: on Tuesday, November 6, Spain’s Constitutional Court, its highest court, ruled that gay marriage is protected under the Spanish Constitution, solidifying marriage equality in Spain. It is now the third country in the world to legally allow same-sex marriages.
This has been a longtime coming: Spain’s Parliament passed the marriage equality law back in 2005, but when the conservative Popular Party took power last year they appealed the law, arguing that “marriage” in the Spanish constitution exclusively refers to a union between a man and a woman. But this week the Constitutional Court voted 8-3 to dismiss the appeal, and now the country’s gay marriage law is firmly in place for good.
The marriage equality law in Spain angered the Roman Catholic Church, but opinion polls show that most Spanish citizens approved of it, and Think Progress reports that as much as 66 percent of the Spanish population supported the measure. Since 2005, more than 22,000 same-sex marriages have taken place in Spain. Thanks to the Constitutional Court’s November 6 decision, same-sex couples will continue to be able to legally marry in Spain, and that’s just as much reason to celebrate as any of the wonderful news we’ve received in the USA this week.
Photo: quest-online.com
