Estonia’s parliament has voted in favour of a bill on same-sex marriage, the parliament’s website says.
A total of 55 MPs backed the bill while 34 voted against it. Starting 1 January 2024, two full grown people are allowed to enter into marriage regardless of their sex.
Apart from marriage, there is also an option to sign an agreement on domestic partnership. Partners registered this way may contract a marriage in a simplified procedure.
Additionally, same-sex couples will be allowed to adopt children. A spouse of the same sex will also be allowed to adopt their partner’s child should the child’s biological parent agree on this. The new law also states that a child can have no more than two parents.
“The government took into account the proposals of the Estonian Centre Party Group when amending the draft before the second reading in order to stress it more clearly in all laws that the second parent, in addition to the mother, is still primarily the father,” ERR notes.
Vladimir Putin signed a law which completely bans “LGBT propaganda” in Russia on 5 December 2022.
The document bans propaganda of “non-traditional sexual relations”, paedophilia, and gender changes on the Internet as well as in media, books, movies, and commercials / advertisements. Additionally, according to the law, foreign citizens could be expelled from Russia for LGBT propaganda.
Russia’s State Duma unanimously adopted (in the first reading) a bill that bans ID change and “medical intervention” for transgender people on 14 June.
Meanwhile, in Belarus, Alyaksandar Lukashenka supported the initiatives of the Prosecutor General’s Office to work out issues related to strengthening the responsibility of parents and establishing administrative responsibility for “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations, sex change, pedophilia and voluntary childlessness.”
