Portuguese parliament has approved Friday a bill that will allow same-sex married couples to adopt their partner’s bilological or adopted children. The bill was approved with 99 votes in favor, 94 votes against, and 9 abstentions.

The bill was supported by the ruling center-right Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the progressive Socialist Party (PS). A co-proposal to allow same-sex married couples to adopt children together was defeated.

The Portuguese parliament had approved the right to same-sex marriages in 2010, but without adoption rights. The law allowed gay couples the same rights as married heterosexual couples, including taxes, inheritance and housing, but didn’t offer the right to adopt children.

Portugal is among the first 10 counties in the world to allow same-sex marriage. As recently as 1982, homosexuality was a crime in Portugal.

Today, Portugal has wide-ranging anti-discrimination laws and is one of the few countries in the world to contain a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation in its Constitution.

The first same-sex marriages in the world took place in the Netherlands on April 1, 2001. The countries that followed were Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina and Brazil.

Countries where gay adoption is legal include Guam, Andorra, Belgium, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom. It is also legal in some parts of Australia, Canada, and the United States.

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LGBT Rights in Portugal >> Wikipedia >>

updated 05/17/2013