Austria’s Constitutional Court has ruled that laws prohibiting gay and lesbian couples from marrying are discriminatory.
According to The New York Times, the court advised that gay couples be allowed to marry starting in 2019, unless lawmakers act sooner.
The ruling, announced Tuesday, makes Austria the 16th European nation to grant marriage equality.
In its ruling, the high court noted that civil partnerships, which began for gay couples in 2010, include many of the same rights and responsibilities of marriage, including adoption. (The ruling also allows heterosexual couples to enter a civil partnership.)
“Today, the differentiation between marriage and legally registered partnerships can no longer be upheld without discriminating against same-sex couples,” the court wrote. “For the separation into two legal institutions implies that homosexual individuals are not equal to heterosexuals.”
The Austrian People’s Party, which is working to form a new government after elections in October, said that it would accept the ruling. But other parties needed to form the government criticized the decision.
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna, also criticized the ruling.
“I am confident that in the long term, a view to the order of creation, which humans cannot disregard without coming to harm, will be established once again,” the Roman Catholic leader told Kathpress.
By Carlos Santoscoy
Source – On Top Magazine
