Same-sex marriage in Gibraltar

The GSLP–Liberal Alliance, re-elected in 2015, included the following commitment in their election manifesto: "We will now publish a Command Paper in order to take the views of the public on how to best deal with the request by some for civil marriage to be extended to same sex couples.

We are totally committed both to ensuring that religious denominations are not forced to change their practices, beliefs or sacraments in any way and to the principle that the State must not discriminate between individuals based on the grounds of sexual orientation.

[17][18] On 20 January 2016, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo announced that there would be no referendum on same-sex marriage after a parliamentary debate on the issue was initiated by the opposition Social Democrats.

[21] On 21 March 2016, the government announced it had received 3,490 responses to the public consultation and that, due to the controversial nature of the subject, it would establish an Inter-Ministerial Committee (composed of four government ministers: Gilbert Licudi, Samantha Sacramento, Neil Costa, and Albert Isola) to listen to the views of the various groups and individuals who had expressed a view on the subject, and report its findings back to the cabinet by June 2016.

Based on its own statistics and past advocacy efforts, the ERG claimed that over 63% of those consultation responses were in favor of same-sex marriage and that "the situation should not be made more complicated than it should be".

[26][27][28] On 26 October 2016, the Civil Marriage Amendment Act 2016 was passed in the Gibraltar Parliament with unanimous support from all 15 members present during the vote.

An amendment to remove a controversial part of the bill which allowed deputy registrars to opt out of conducting same-sex marriages was defeated 11 to 4 with only some of the Opposition MPs voting in favor.

[33][34] The first same-sex marriage in Gibraltar was performed the following day at the Registry Office between Aaron Mills and Adrian Charles Triay-Dignam.