Malta's constitution says Catholicism is the official state religion, but they still legalised same-sex marriage before Australia.

On Wednesday the Maltese parliament voted overwhelmingly to legalise same-sex marriage, joining 13 other European countries including Germany, which passed similar legislation just last month.

Only one of Malta’s 67 MPs voted against the legislation, citing his strong Christian faith. “As a Christian politician I cannot leave my conscience outside the door,” he said.

It’s a pretty extraordinary result for such a staunchly Catholic country. Nearly 90 per cent of the country identifies as Roman Catholic and the second article of the Maltese constitution declares “the religion of Malta is the Roman Catholic Apostolic Religion” and “the authorities of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church have the duty and the right to teach which principles are right and which are wrong.”

The Archbishop of Malta, Charles Scicluna, had opposed the legislation, using an extremely weird metaphor about a carob and an orange.

“I can decide that a carob and an orange should no longer be called by their name,” he said. “But a carob remains a carob and an orange remains an orange. And marriage, whatever the law says, remains an eternal union exclusive to a man and a woman.”

Hmm, good point Archbishop.

But despite the church’s objections the reform sailed through parliament. To add some more context to how significant this new law is, Malta only legalised divorce in 2011 and abortion remains a crime.

Malta isn’t the only strongly Catholic nation to have legalised same-sex marriage. Spain, Portugal and Ireland have all embraced marriage equality.

Yeah, This Makes Australia Look Really Bad

So if constitutionally Catholic Malta can legalise same-sex marriage, what is going on in Australia?

Our constitution explicitly states that the “Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion.”

According to the most recent census data the most popular single religious group in Australia is… no religion (all Christian religions make up 52% of the population, but that number is dropping fast). But despite our officially secular form of government and lack of deep religious convictions we don’t seem particularly close to legislating marriage equality.

The problem isn’t public support, it’s the political stalemate in Canberra. A majority of MPs actually back same-sex marriage but the Coalition’s plebiscite policy means that it’s unlikely we’ll have a parliamentary vote anytime soon. Liberal Senator Dean Smith has drafted his own same-sex marriage bill, which could pass the Senate, but it’s still unclear how the government will react when it hits the House of Representatives.

So for the time being Australia will continue to be an international embarrassment on this issue.