The parliament of Slovenia voted Tuesday 51 to 28 in favor of legislation that would allow same-sex couples to marry, reported AFP, bucking a recent trend against marriage equality in Eastern Europe.
"This amendment defines marriage as a life-long community of two persons, regardless of their sex, eliminating the discriminative situation in force up to now," said Matej T. Vatovec of the opposition United Left Party as he introduced the bill, whose party sponsored the bill with support of the major party in the ruling coalition.
Slovenia, which was part of Yugoslavia before its collapse in the 1990s, passes its new law just after two other former Yugoslav republics adopted provisions that ban same-sex couples from marrying. The parliament of the Republic of Macedonia voted to deny marriage recognition to same-sex couples in January of 2015 by a vote of 72 to 4, and voters in Croatia adopted a similar ban in a referendum in December of 2013. Two other Eastern European countries — Slovakia and Hungary — have also voted to block marriage equality since 2012.