The Constitutional Court legalised same-sex marriage and adoptions with immediate effect after finding a law under which only heterosexual partners can marry and same-sex couples cannot adopt children to be in contravention of the constitutional ban on discrimination. In two rulings issued on Friday, the court gave the National Assembly six months to amend the law accordingly, but until the law is amended its ruling stands as the law and means that marriage is a union between two persons regardless of gender, and same-sex partners living in a civil partnership may adopt a child together under the same conditions as married spouses. The court deliberated on the matter based on a constitutional complaint by two same-sex couples who, respectively, failed in front of regular courts to marry or to make the list of candidates for adoption. Referring to marriage, it said discrimination against same-sex couples “cannot be justified with the traditional meaning of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, nor with special protection of family.” The decision “does not diminish the importance of traditional marriage as a union of a man and a woman, nor does it change conditions under which persons of the opposite sex marry. All it means is that same-sex partners can now marry just like heterosexual partners can.” Same-sex partners have so far been confined to civil unions, which gave the partners some but not all the rights of heterosexual partners. The court used a similar argument for same-sex adoptions as it noted that same-sex couples have already been allowed to adopt each other’s children.
via sloveniatimes: Constitutional Court legalises same-sex marriage, adoptions
