Luxembourg Passes Marriage, Adoption for Same-Sex Couples

In a landslide vote, Luxembourg's legislative body voted to extend marriage and adoption rights to same-sex couples in the small western European country on Wednesday, according to the Washington Blade.

The vote in Luxembourg's Chamber of Deputies was 56-4, reports Time magazine. Notably, Luxembourg's prime minister is gay; so is its vice prime minister.

"They should have the same rights as heterosexuals," Luxembourg legislator Viviane Loschetter told L'essentiel, a newspaper that serves the small nation.

While there may be celebration in Luxembourg City, official wedding bells won't chime for gay couples until early 2015 -- six months after official publication of the new law. But passage of same-sex marriage Thursday allows Prime Minister Xavier Bettel to make good on his campaign promise to secure marriage rights for same-sex couples.

Luxembourg is the last "grand duchy" on the planet. It's head of state is Grand Duke Henri, whose subjects number just more than 500,000 people.

This latest -- and in this case, overwhelming -- win for marriage-equality makes Luxembourg the 11th nation within the European Union that recognizes same-sex marriage as legally binding, according to LGBT organization Freedom To Marry. Add to that number Iceland, Canada, Brazil, Uruguay, New Zealand, South Africa and state-by-state marriage-equality in the U.S., and there are now more than 17 countries in the world where same-sex couples can legally wed.