Finland legalizes gay marriage

[Tender Branson]

The Finnish Parliament voted on Friday afternoon to allow gender-neutral marriage, 105-92. The vote had been expected to be closer.

The gender-neutral marriage bill was seventh on the list of 15 votes. Four MPs out of the 200 MPs were absent on the first vote, concerning a reform of language laws, and two on the second vote, on car taxation. The third vote, on child subsidies, was also a vote of confidence in the government - which survived by a margin of 100-97. Only two MPs out of the 200 MPs were absent.

The unprecedented outcome marks the first time that a citizens' initiative has received lawmakers' blessing to be written into the law books. It also allows Finland to finally catch up with its Nordic peers, all of which have already legalised gay marriage.

http://yle.fi/uutiset/finnish_parliament_approves_same-sex_marriage/7657759

[politicus]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=150978.msg4396048#msg4396048

Mumbar's first post on the issue with good background - as usual Tender didn't bother to check if the topic was already being discussed before he made a thread.

[mubar]

Yes! The support was surprisingly clear, as almost all MPs who hadn't revealed their intention before, ended up voting for marriage also for same-sex couples.

Yle has listed all the votes by party.

The Green and Left support was unanimous, and the Social Democrats and Swedish People's Party were also very strongly for equality. Kokoomus had the most positive unexpected voting choices, finally having a clear majority coming out for same-sex marriage. In the opposing side, the conservative agrarian Centre, the populist right/far-right "finns" party and the Christian party were against the citizens' initiative almost without exceptions.

As for legalizing gay marriage, this result with such a margin makes it practically a certainty. However because the vote was preceded by the negative opinion of the parliament's law committee, this initiative must still clear two more steps. Next week it will be sent to the parliament's grand committee, which will examine it, give its suggestions and send it back to the full session for the final vote. In theory this could take a long time. Luckily the grand committee (unlike the conservative-chaired law committee) has a clear majority of marriage equality supporters, so it will not create any delays, and the full parliament should be able to vote again before Christmas. The result then should look the same as today, so this matter is basically decided now.

[Nhoj]

I see one PS MP voted for it. Any reasons on why?

[mubar]

I see one PS MP voted for it. Any reasons on why?

Yes, Arja Juvonen did, because of her personal opinion on the matter, and on principle of keeping her word.

She's become quite famous for it in Finland. PS party leadership of course tries to force all its MPs to vote against same-sex marriage. Juvonen however had publicly stated that she supports gay rights including marriage equality, before getting elected in 2011. This made things complicated for her, as she's also a member of the parliament's law committee, where she in fact followed the PS party line by opposing the marriage initiative (by staying out whenever there was any decision on the initiative, thus allowing her fundamentalist Christian substitute member to vote against it). But in a full session vote like today, the MPs are supposed to vote by their own free will, so she did.

[Famous Mortimer]

Shout out to my own thread:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=176447.25

Finland got the most votes although actually Luxembourg did it before them.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Why was the Centre Party opposed? I'm going to assume they are not like the Centre Party in Sweden much at all then (who would've no doubt supported this.)

[MaxQue]

Why was the Centre Party opposed? I'm going to assume they are not like the Centre Party in Sweden much at all then (who would've no doubt supported this.)

It's a party of rural interests, quite conservative on such issues.

[Gustaf]

Why was the Centre Party opposed? I'm going to assume they are not like the Centre Party in Sweden much at all then (who would've no doubt supported this.)

The Swedish Centre Party of a few decades ago would probably have been similar. I know their women's organization opposed either this or gay adoption (I don't quite remember which) fairly recently (like maybe 10 years ago). But the Swedish Centre has gone radically liberal in the last few years on a lot of issues.

Finland has always been more rural and conservative than Sweden I believe. This is visible in how the Finnish Centre Party has remained so strong and how Finnish liberals never had much electoral success (I believe there was a Finnish peoples' party for a while though).

[H. Ross Peron]

Is gay marriage more controversial in Europe than abortion at this point considering the closeness of this vote?

[politicus]

Is gay marriage more controversial in Europe than abortion at this point considering the closeness of this vote?

Europe is too diverse to be a meaningful category in this context, but gay marriage clearly has more opponents than legal abortion in Scandinavia, where free abortion is fairly uncontroversial among the general population.

[mubar]

Updates: the grand committee of the parliament approved the same-sex marriage bill on Wednesday by 17-8 as expected. Now the bill will be again debated in the full parliament session on Wednesday 10.12. and then voted on the last time on Friday 12.12. after which it will need to be certified by the president, who has already said that he accepts it. It is expected that some of the former opponents will either not be present or will even support the bill next Friday, so the margin could be even bigger this time.

Regarding the comparison to Sweden and the Centre Party's role, it's right. Finland has the tendency to follow Sweden with a few years' or a full decade's delay in social matters. For example: decriminalization of homosexuality (Sweden 1944, Finland 1971), civil unions (Sweden 1995, Finland 2002), same-sex marriage (Sweden 2009, Finland now)... It is the issue of the more conservative and rural population.

Centre Party's hegemony in rural areas of middle and northern Finland is also a big factor, especially as some small municipalities of Vaasa and Oulu district are basically Centre-led one-party states. The difference between rural and urban areas is quite big in matters like this. If you look at the map of last week's vote by MPs' electoral districts, it's easy to see that the MPs from Centre-dominated areas in central and northern part of the country were most likely to be strongly against, while the southern urban areas, where Centre is a minor player, saw the highest support.

[politicus]

Thank you, it's a very interesting map. Apart from the obvious far south vs. the rest of the country dichotomy it's telling how much more conservative the eastern part of the south is than the (more) urban west.