Finnish lawmakers reject petition attempting to revoke same-sex marriage

[DonViejo]

Source: Associated Press



By JARI TANNER, Associated Press · Friday, February 17, 2017

HELSINKI (AP) — Finnish lawmakers on Friday rejected a petition from more than 100,000 people demanding the repeal of a law allowing same-sex marriage that takes effect on March 1.

The petition was considered a last-minute attempt to revoke the law that made Finland the last Nordic country to allow gays to wed.

In Friday’s 120-48 vote with two abstentions and 29 absentees, Finland’s Parliament rejected a public petition demanding that marriage remains “a genuinely egalitarian union between man and woman” and calling for “repealing the gender-neutral marriage law.”

In Finland, any petition with at least 50,000 signatures is automatically considered by Parliament. Those backing the petition were the populist Finns Party, a member of the country’s three-party, center-right Cabinet, and the opposition Christian Democrats. The plea argued that a child was entitled to have both a mother and a father, and an earlier law allowing registered partnership was sufficient.

Read more: http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2017/02/finnish-lawmakers-reject-petition-attempting-revoke-sex-marriage/

[tenorly]

1. 100,000 signatures, in a country of 6 million.

Goes to show that medievalism is not unique to the American right.

Good for Finland's Parliament for standing up to the holy rollers. Never an easy task.