Saturday, July 18, 2015

Spain celebrates 10 years of gay marriage


Just after the legalization of gay marriage nationwide in the United States, Spain has celebrated the 10 year anniversary of its own legalization of equal marriage.

From as early as 2004, Spain’s newly elected Socialist government led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero had been petitioning for the legalization of same-sex marriage. The Spanish parliament and senate passed the law on June 30th 2005, with it coming into force three days later on July 3rd.

The law made Spain only the third country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage, after the Netherlands and Belgium and 17 days ahead of Canada.

Despite Spain’s reputation as a traditionalist and religious country, 66 percent of Spaniards supported the law at the time.

The law was strongly opposed by the opposition Popular Party. When conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy took office in 2011, he professed his opposition to same-sex marriage, but said he would wait and see what the country's Constitutional Court would rule on the issue.

The law was upheld by the court, with eight supporting votes and three against. The conservative government said it would abide by the ruling and the law would not be repealed.

There were 31,610 same-sex marriages in Spain between 2005 and 2015 according to the country’s institute of national statistics (INE).


All Spanish pride parades celebrate this year
 the 10th anniversary of gay marriage

Pedro Zerolo (left) an important LGBT activist
who recently died by cancer

The townhall with a big rainbow flag for Madrid Pride 2015 

Madrid, Barcelona, Benidorm, Sitges...
some of the most known Spanish proud cities!



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