Finland Allows Same-Sex Marriages For The First Time
Source: Huffington Post
Finland’s same-sex couples can finally marry and adopt children, as the country’s marriage equality law comes into effect on Wednesday.
The Northern European country’s parliament originally passed the legislation to make same-sex marriage legal in 2014, voting 101-90 in favor of the law. The fate of the legislation was finally confirmed last month, however, when lawmakers shot down a citizens’ petition calling for its repeal.
The far-right populist Finns Party and the Christian Democrats backed the challenge to the marriage equality law, but the parliament voted 120-48 to uphold the law. Finnish Member of Parliament Emma Kari lambasted the appeal as “harassment in the form of government cooperation.”
Finland is the last Nordic country to make marriage equality legal, after countries such as Sweden and Norway passed same-sex marriage laws in 2009. Denmark has had same-sex unions since 1989, the first country in the world to do so, but those partnerships did not grant full rights.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/finland-same-sex-marriage_us_58b6d90ce4b0780bac2eedd8
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