Same-sex marriage in Gibraltar has been legal since 15 December 2016. A bill for the legalisation of

same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...

s was approved by the

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

on 26 October 2016 and received

royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in oth ...

on 1 November 2016.

Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = "Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gibr ...

has also allowed

civil partnerships A civil union (also known as a civil partnership) is a legally recognized arrangement similar to marriage, created primarily as a means to provide recognition in law for same-sex couples. Civil unions grant some or all of the rights of marriage ...

since 28 March 2014.

Civil partnerships

In January 2014, a

civil partnership A civil union (also known as a civil partnership) is a legally recognized arrangement similar to marriage, created primarily as a means to provide recognition in law for same-sex couples. Civil unions grant some or all of the rights of marriage ...

bill was published for community consultation and headed for introduction in the

Gibraltar Parliament The Gibraltar Parliament is the legislature of the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. Between 1969 and 2006, it was called the Gibraltar House of Assembly. Functions The House of Assembly, set up under the 1969 constitution, was a uni ...

. On 21 March, the bill was approved by Parliament with no noticeable opposition. It was given

on 25 March by Governor James Dutton, officially becoming the ''Civil Partnership Act 2014''. The law and related rules and

regulations Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. Fo ...

took effect on 28 March. The law also allows adoption by civil partners, as mandated by a court ruling in 2013. Civil partnerships offer the same rights and benefits as marriage in terms of

inheritance tax An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and property) of a person who has died. International tax law distinguishes between an e ...

property rights The right to property, or the right to own property (cf. ownership) is often classified as a human right for natural persons regarding their possessions. A general recognition of a right to private property is found more rarely and is typically h ...

social security Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...

pension A pension (, from Latin ''pensiō'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...

benefits,

next of kin A person's next of kin (NOK) are that person's closest living blood relatives. Some countries, such as the United States, have a legal definition of "next of kin". In other countries, such as the United Kingdom, "next of kin" may have no legal d ...

rights in hospitals, adoption rights, and others.

Same-sex marriage

The

GSLP–Liberal Alliance The GSLP–Liberal Alliance is a centre-left political alliance active in Gibraltar consisting of the Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party (GSLP) and Liberal Party of Gibraltar (LPG). History The first election contested by the Alliance was the 2000 ...

, 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. The results of the responses to the Command Paper will be published by June

016 HV-016 is a former military unit of Norway, that was a part of the Home Guard. It was established after 1985 to "stop terror- or sabotage actions that could weaken or paralyze Norway's ability to mobilize its military and its ability to resist". ...

"GSLP/Liberals Manifesto 2015
pages 95-96 The Equality Rights Group said it did not go far enough and asked for more commitment to introduce

. On 22 December 2015, a

command paper A command paper is a document issued by the UK Government and presented to Parliament. White papers, green papers, treaties, government responses, draft bills, reports from Royal Commissions, reports from independent inquiries and various govern ...

on introducing same-sex marriage was published and was under

public consultation Public consultation (Commonwealth countries and European Union), public comment (US), or simply consultation, is a regulatory process by which the public's input on matters affecting them is sought. Its main goals are in improving the efficiency, ...

until 15 January 2016. On 4 January 2016, it was announced that the consultation period had been extended to 29 January 2016. On 5 January, a government spokesman said that a

referendum A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a Representative democr ...

on the issue would not be ruled out until all the comments submitted by the public had been considered. On 18 January 2016, in his

New Year New Year is the time or day currently at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar's year count increments by one. Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner. In the Gregorian calendar, the most widely used calendar system ...

's message,

Daniel Feetham Daniel Anthony Feetham KC MP is a Gibraltarian politician and lawyer who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Gibraltar Social Democrats (GSD) from 2013 to 2017. Political career Mr Feetham was one of the founders of the Gibra ...

, leader of the

Social Democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...

, declared his support for same-sex marriage and, despite allowing members of his party a

free vote A conscience vote or free vote is a type of vote in a legislative body where legislators are allowed to vote according to their own personal conscience rather than according to an official line set down by their political party. In a parliamentary ...

on matters of conscience, said that his parliamentary colleagues all declared their support for the issue as well. He said that it was up to the

Government of Gibraltar His Majesty's Government of Gibraltar is the democratically elected government of the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. The head of state is King Charles III who is represented by the Governor. Elections in Gibraltar are held every fo ...

to decide on how to proceed with the issue when the time comes. On 20 January 2016, Chief Minister

Fabian Picardo Fabian Raymond Picardo (born 18 February 1972) is a Gibraltarian politician and barrister serving as Chief Minister of Gibraltar and Leader of the Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party since 2011. At the 2015 and 2019 Gibraltar general elections, P ...

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. In that same debate, the Chief Minister said that he expected the feedback from the consultation process to improve the same-sex marriage bill. On 21 March 2016, the government announced that it had received 3,490 responses in regards 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 The Hon. Gilbert Horace Licudi is a Gibraltarian barrister and legal partner at Hassans and former Minister (2011-2020) and former MP (2007-2023) of Gibraltar, member of the Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party (GSLP). He is married and has two c ...

Samantha Sacramento Samantha Jane Sacramento is a Gibraltar politician. She is the Minister for the Health Authority, Justice, Multiculturalism, Equality and Community Affairs in the Government of Gibraltar. Samantha Sacramento was born in Gibraltar. She attended sc ...

, Neil Costa, and

Albert Isola The Hon. Albert J. Isola TEP is a Gibraltarian barrister and politician, member of the Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party (GSLP). He was a member of the Gibraltar House of Assembly as part of the Opposition between 1996 and 2000. He later became a ...

) to listen to the views of the various groups and many of the individuals who expressed a view on the subject, and report its findings back to the cabinet by June 2016. In response to the announcement, the chairman of the Equality Rights Group (ERG), Felix Alvarez, questioned the commitment of the governing GSLP-Liberal Alliance to legislate on the matter and urged both "the LGBT community at large and their friends and supporters to remain calm and reserve their responses until the government comes up with a definitive answer on how to handle this situation". Based on their own statistics and past advocacy efforts, 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. A government bill on the legalisation of same-sex marriage was published on 15 August 2016. On 26 October 2016, the ''Civil Marriage Amendment Act 2016'' was passed in the

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. The bill required that, in circumstances where a deputy registrar did not agree to officiate a same-sex marriage, an alternative registrar had to be assigned to conduct the

marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between ...

. The bill received

from Deputy Governor

Nick Pyle Nicholas John Pyle is British diplomat who had been Deputy Governor of Gibraltar from September 2016 to August 2022. He served as acting Governor from 18 February 2020 to 11 June 2020. Prior to Gibraltar, Pyle had been High Commissioner to Bot ...

, acting for Governor Ed Davis, on 1 November and took effect on 15 December 2016. The first same-sex marriage in Gibraltar was performed the following day at the Registry Office between Aaron Mills and Adrian Charles Triay-Dignam. In May 2017, a same-sex couple seeking to convert their civil partnership into a marriage were told to

divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving th ...

first by authorities, who cited a lack of legislation for converting a civil partnership to a marriage. This occurred despite the Equality Rights Group confirming that such a provision existed in the law, and that the matter was simply one of excessive paperwork. The law was officially amended in late 2019 so that deputy registrars are no longer able to opt-out of performing civil same-sex marriages. The amendment was assented by Governor Ed Davis and gazetted shortly thereafter.

Statistics

By October 2017, 39 same-sex marriages had taken place in Gibraltar, with 32 of these being between couples from overseas; 25 between two men and 7 between two women.

Religious performance

The

Methodist Church of Great Britain The Methodist Church of Great Britain is a Protestant Christian denomination in Britain, and the mother church to Methodists worldwide. It participates in the World Methodist Council, and the World Council of Churches among other ecumenical as ...

has allowed its ministers to conduct same-sex marriages since 2021. The Methodist Conference voted 254 to 46 in favour of the move. A freedom of conscience clause allows ministers with objections to opt out of performing same-sex weddings. Reverend Fidel Patron of the

Gibraltar Methodist Church The Gibraltar Methodist Church is part of the South East District of the Methodist Church of Great Britain. It has a long history associated with the development of British Gibraltar, and it has greatly strengthened its ties with the local populat ...

responded that the church was "not in a position to answer yet" as to whether the church would perform same-sex weddings.

References

{{LGBT unions and rights in the territories of the United Kingdom LGBT rights in Gibraltar

2016 in LGBT history

Civil partnerships

Same-sex marriage

Statistics

Religious performance

See also

References