Finnish lawmakers reject call to revoke same-sex marriage

HELSINKI – Finnish lawmakers have rejected a petition from more than 100,000 people demanding to repeal a law allowing same-sex marriage.

The move is considered a last-minute attempt to revoke the law that made Finland the last Nordic country to allow homosexuals to wed.

In Friday's 120-48 vote with two abstentions and 29 absentees, Finland's Parliament rejected a public petition demanding that marriage remain "a genuinely egalitarian union between man and woman" and calling for "repealing the gender-neutral marriage law."

In Finland, any petition with at least 50,000 signatures is automatically considered by Parliament.

Although same-sex couples have been able to live in officially registered partnerships in Finland since 2002, it wasn't until 2014 that Finland decided to approve same-sex marriage, giving couples right to share a surname and to adopt children.