MADRID, SPAIN -- The lower house of the Spanish Parliament approved the Socialist government's gay-marriage bill yesterday, a major step toward making traditionally Roman Catholic Spain the third European country to legalize same-sex marriages.

The bill, which also will pave the way for gay couples to adopt children, will now go to the Senate — where the Socialists have ample support — for final approval in the coming weeks. Belgium and the Netherlands are the only two other European countries that have legalized gay marriages.

People celebrate on the steps of the Spanish Parliament yesterday after the lower house approved the government's gay-marriage bill. MANU FERNANDEZ / AP

Representatives of gay and lesbian groups cheered and applauded from the chamber's public gallery when the vote result was read. The bill passed by a 183-136 vote, with six abstentions.

"This is a great and historic day because never before has such a small legal reform made such an important improvement in rights and in favor of freedom and equality," said Pedro Zerolo, a leader of Spain's homosexual-rights group.

The bill reflects the radical change in recent decades in Spain, for centuries a bastion of the church. According to Madrid's Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, while 80 percent of Spaniards consider themselves Catholic, half ignore church teachings, and religion for most is more an inherited tag than a way of life.

Polls say nearly half of the country's Roman Catholics almost never go to Mass, and a third say they are simply not religious.

Spain's Roman Catholic church and the conservative opposition Popular Party opposed the bill.

The Spanish Bishops Conference issued a statement saying the bill "went against the common good." Organizations representing the Jewish, Protestant and Orthodox faiths in Spain also expressed opposition to the bill.

In an opinion poll on the issue carried out by the government-run Center for Sociological Investigations last June, 66 percent of Spaniards favored legalizing gay marriage, while 26 percent opposed.

Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's Socialists proposed the bill in October, seven months after winning general elections that ended an eight-year stint for the Popular Party.

In a separate vote yesterday, the lower house also approved the government's proposed fast-track, no-fault divorce law, which scraps the trial period of separation and lets people file directly for divorce three months after getting married.

Under the existing law, a man or woman filing for divorce had to state a reason to the judge, such as infidelity. The new bill says either can simply request a divorce — no questions asked — and the judge has to grant it.

© 2005 The Associated Press

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