Germany’s government is being forced to discuss whether same-sex couples should be granted full marriage equality.

The Bundestag (lower house) will soon have to discuss two proposed laws which would extend marriage to include same-sex couples.

Only today, the chamber’s judicial committee refused to discuss the left-wing fraction’s proposed laws for the ‘introduction of the right of marriage for people of the same gender’ for the third time in a row.

Both governing parties, Chancellor Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union as well as the Social Democrats, voted against the committee’s decision due to coalition agreements.

Now they are being forced into the discussion because Renate Kuehnat – leading the Green Party – made use of a loophole in the proceedings.

According to the chamber’s news service, she used paragraph 62, passage 2, of the Bundestag’s procedural rules; it states that a fraction can demand a debate of an interim or status report if it has not been discussed 10 weeks after the motion was first presented.

In October, following an update on law regulating civil partnerships, numerous MPs passed a motion demanding marriage equality.

Now it’s down to the speaker’s office to decide if, and if so when, the debate will be set.