Portugal's parliament voted today to approve plans to legalise same-sex marriage, less than three decades after revoking the country's ban on homosexuality.
The bill passed with limited public controversy in what has traditionally been one of Europe's most socially conservative countries.
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After less than three hours' debate, the bill proposed by Prime Minister Jose Socrates was passed by 123 votes to 99, with the Opposition voting against it.
It will now be reviewed in committee before coming back for a final vote in parliament, and if finally ratified by the president, the first gay wedding could take place in April. Conservative President Anibal Cavaco Silva is thought unlikely to veto the bill.
Socrates said the aim of the legislation was to remedy decades of injustice towards gays, recalling that as recently as 1982 homosexuality was a crime in Portugal.
"I am of a generation - as we all are - which is not proud of the way it treated homosexuals," the prime minister said before lawmakers in parliament.
"This is a step that will seem completely natural in the near future, in the same way that gender equality, abortion rights and unmarried couples living together are normal now.
"Gay marriage has been approved by numerous countries and will be approved by many more. I have no doubt about that."
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Gay rights campaigners outside parliament greeted the result of Friday's vote with cries of joy and celebrated with champagne and wedding cake.
In contrast to Spain, where the run-up to the legalisation of gay marriage in 2005 brought hundreds of thousands of demonstrators onto the streets, the bill in Portugal provoked only muted opposition even from the political right.
While normally vocal, the Catholic Church refused to mobilise on the issue, which Lisbon's Cardinal Patriarch Jose Policarpo said was "parliament's responsibility".
The main opposition Social Democratic Party proposed granting 'civil unions' in lieu of equal marriage, but its bill was voted down.