Seven years after first gay weddings, justices to approve law

Seven years after the conservative Popular Party (PP) appealed the same-sex marriage law introduced in 2005 by the Socialist government, the Constitutional Court is set to decide whether this controversial piece of legislation is upheld or repealed.

All 11 justices will convene on Tuesday to rule on the fate of a law that has so far allowed 20,000 same-sex weddings to take place and made Spain a pioneering country for gay rights.

The court currently has a clear progressive majority, which suggests that the appeal will not prosper. However, four new justices are due to be elected in the coming days in a replacement process that is already almost two years behind schedule.

Even so, the new composition (six progressives and five conservatives) would not be much different from what it is now – seven progressive justices and four conservatives.

Whatever the decision, it will presumably once and for all resolve an issue that has been causing confrontation between the Socialists and the Popular Party for seven years now. The debate over homosexual marriage has been present in just about every single election campaign in Spain since the summer of 2005, when it passed in parliament.

The appeal against gay marriage legislation is the last item on the court’s agenda for Tuesday, which means that there is an outside chance that the decision could be postponed until the next plenary session later in July. At that point, the four newly elected justices would still not have taken up their posts.