Malta votes to legalize same-sex marriage

Malta has voted to legalize same-sex marriage, six years after the island permitted divorce.

Malta's official religion is Catholicism, and the Catholic Church opposed the amendment, but just one of Malta's 67 parliamentarians voted against it, the BBC reports. Parliament amended the marriage act so it now says "spouse" instead of "husband" and "wife" and "parent who gave birth" and "parent who did not give birth" instead of "mother" and "father."

Hundreds of people celebrated outside Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's office, who said it was a "historic vote. This shows that our democracy and society have reached a level of maturity and we can now say that we are all equal."

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