On the 28th of November, Parliament decided to move ahead with same-sex marriage legislation voting down a decision by the Legal Affairs Committee calling for the rejection of a citizens' initiative bill on gender-neutral marriage.
In effect, that vote approved same-sex marriage by 105-92 and referred the bill to committee as the next step in the passage process.
On Friday, in a second vote, Parliament gave its approval to the citizens' initiative bill in a vote of 101-90 with one abstention and 7 MPs absent from the session and one abstention.
The reform will require wide-ranging changes in other legislation, which will take well over a year to finalise. The law will therefore not take effect until 2016 at the earliest. Finland has allowed registered same-sex partnerships since 2002.
