Law no. 9/2010, of 31 May, allowing same-sex marriage, has been published in the Portuguese Official Gazette today.

At the end of a debate on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) condemned discrimination and called on European States to guarantee equal rights, i.e. legal recognition and equal treatment of same-sex partnerships and provide for the possibility of "joint parental responsibility" for each partner's children “bearing in mind the interests of children”.

The German federal parliament (the Bundestag) on 21 April 2010 heard two members of ECSOL as experts in a public hearing on inclusion of “sexual identity” into the federal constitution’s bill of rights.

The President of the Republic had some doubts about the constitutionality of the bill lifting the prohibition of marriage for same-sex couple, and decided to ask the Constitutional Court to review it before he signed it. The Court has decided that the bill is not unconstitutional.
The decision is available online at www.tribunalconstitucional.pt (in Portuguese only). If past practice is followed in this case, this means that the President of the Republic will sign the bill into law shortly.