Same-sex marriage in Gibraltar

Same-sex marriage became legal in Gibraltar on 15 December 2016. A bill for legalisation was approved by the Parliament on 26 October 2016 and received royal assent on 1 November 2016. The territory has allowed civil partnerships since 28 March 2014.

In January 2014, the Civil Partnership Bill 2014 was published for community consultation and headed for introduction in the Gibraltar Parliament. On 21 March, the bill was approved by Parliament with no noticeable opposition. The bill was given royal assent on 25 March. The law and related rules and regulations took effect on 28 March. The law also allows adoption of children by couples in a civil partnership, as mandated by a recent court ruling in 2013.

The GSLP–Liberal Alliance, who were re-elected in 2015, included the following commitment in their election manifesto: "We will now publish a Command Paper in order to take the views of the public on how to best deal with the request by some for civil marriage to be extended to same sex couples. We are totally committed both to ensuring that religious denominations are not forced to change their practices, beliefs or sacraments in any way and to the principle that the State must not discriminate between individuals based on the grounds of sexual orientation. The results of the responses to the Command Paper will be published by June [2016]." The Equal Rights Group said it did not go far enough and asked for more commitment to introduce same-sex marriage.

On 22 December 2015, a command paper on introducing same-sex marriage was published and was under consultation until 15 January 2016. On 4 January 2016, it was announced that the consultation period had been extended to 29 January 2016. On 5 January 2016, a spokesman for the Government stated that a referendum on the issue had not yet been ruled out until all the comments submitted by the public had been considered.

On 18 January 2016, in his New Year message, GSD leader Daniel Feetham declared his support for same-sex marriage and, despite allowing members of his party a free vote on matters of conscience, stated that his parliamentary colleagues all declared their support on the issue as well. He then stated that it was up to the Government to decide on how to proceed with the issue when the time comes.

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