Same-sex marriage in Portugal
[1][2] The XVIII Constitutional Government of Portugal under Prime Minister José Sócrates introduced a bill for legalization in December 2009.
On 17 May 2010, President Aníbal Cavaco Silva ratified the law, making Portugal the sixth country in Europe and the eighth in the world to allow same-sex marriage nationwide.
[1] Polling suggests that a significant majority of Portuguese people support the legal recognition of same-sex marriage.
Their application was refused, but the couple, Teresa Pires and Helena Paixão, promised to challenge the ban in court, saying that it discriminated against them on the basis of their sexual orientation.
Pires and Paixão's lawyer, Luís Grave Rodrigues, presented their arguments on 19 October 2007, including seven legal opinions (pareceres) from Portuguese professors of law arguing that the ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.
[13][14] Prime Minister José Sócrates said on 18 January 2009 that, if re-elected in the September 2009 elections, he planned to introduce a bill to grant same-sex couples the right to marry.
[15][16][17] In March 2009, Jorge Lacão, the Secretary of State for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, confirmed that the Socialist government intended to legalize same-sex marriage if re-elected in 2009.
[18] Manuela Ferreira Leite, the leader of the conservative Social Democratic Party, expressed her opposition to the recognition of same-sex marriage.
It attracted the support of several Portuguese celebrities, including Nobel Prize winner José Saramago and the Mayor of Lisbon, António Costa.
[20][21] In October 2009, the newly re-elected Sócrates made an assurance that the Socialist Party would move ahead with its campaign promise of legalizing same-sex marriage.
The proposition received strong support from the Left Bloc, with its parliamentary leader, Francisco Louçã, presenting his own bill to legalize same-sex marriage.
[51][52][53][54] The ruling was published in the official gazette on 28 April, giving the President twenty days to sign, or veto, the bill.
[96] On 13 May 2010, during an official visit to Portugal four days before the ratification of the law, Pope Benedict XVI affirmed his opposition to same-sex marriage, describing it as "insidious and dangerous".
[101] In September 2024, Father João Emanuel Pereir blessed a same-sex couple in Porto, which caused some controversy in Catholic circles.
[105] A Pew Research Center poll, conducted between April and August 2017 and published in May 2018, showed that 59% of Portuguese people supported same-sex marriage, 28% were opposed and 13% did not know or had refused to answer.
