“We can compromise on financial, economic and technical issues but we will not compromise on our principles," says Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.

It wasn’t that long ago that Malta was named the most LGBT-friendly country in Europe, but the Catholic nation is only now getting down to codifying same-sex marriage.

And it’s not been the smoothest of rides.

A marriage equality bill is expected to pass parliament this year, the first measure put forward by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat after the Labour Party’s resounding victory in a snap election last month. But there is debate, both about the bill’s wording and its intent.

An amendment by the opposition Nationalist Party would have kept the terms “mother,” “father,” “husband” and “wife” while adding “parent” and “spouse,” but it was rejected by the Labour government. Equality minister Helena Dalli said that such measures “implicitly undermine the concept of equality and create distinctions between different couples.”

Muscat says he won’t approve any legislation that makes a distinction between heterosexual and homosexual couples.

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“We can compromise on financial, economic and technical issues but we will not compromise on our principles. The Opposition had used the same sort of arguments during the debate on civil unions and the Labour government had refused to compromise because the law was necessary in today’s world.”

He called marriage equality “a matter of principles, not political convenience.”

With a population of fewer than 450,000, Malta’s evolution as a progressive European leader has been relatively recent: Divorce was only legalized in 2011, and surrogacy is still illegal.

In 2006, only 18% of the population supported same-sex marriage. But by 2015 that number soared to 65%. Still, there are those bristling at marriage being “redefined.”

“Are we today aware of the consequences of such a law, not only on the concept of marriage but also on the concept of the family?” read a recent op-ed in the Times of Malta. “Why is it that in order to accommodate a section of society we are ignoring the good of society as a whole? Who, in Parliament, is going to represent the majority of us Catholics, who hold that marriage is a lasting union between a man and woman as husband and wife?”

Nationalist Party whip David Agius sarcastically claimed the law would mean people could no longer call their parents mom and dad: “Will we be celebrating ’person who gave birth today’ instead of Mother’s Day?”

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But opposition has been nothing on the level seen in the U.S., France and Germany—even Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna seems more focused on semantics than doctrine. “We do not need to change the way in which God created marriage to enable us to say that two men or two women can get married,” said Scicluna, who argues the wording undermines the “procreative” purpose of marriage.

A popular Mediterranean vacation destination, Malta was the first European country to constitutionally outlaw discrimination based on gender identity and, last year, became the first to ban gay conversion therapy.