Malta's parliament has voted to allow same-sex couples to marry, three years after passing a law permitting civil partnerships in the overwhelmingly Catholic island nation.
MPs gave near-unanimous approval to the bill, which represents a major step for LGBT rights on the island.
The law, which drew cross-party support, removes words such as "husband", "wife", "mother" and "father" from the Marriage Act and replaces them with the gender-neutral "spouse", "parent who gave birth" and "parent who did not give birth".
Malta, the EU's smallest nation, becomes the bloc's 15th country to legalise same-sex unions.
The vote was one of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's first actions following his election victory last month.
Mr Muscat won a second term in office on 3 June and had vowed to reinforce his call for equality in society.
"It's a historic vote. This shows that our democracy and society have reached a level of maturity and we can now say that we are all equal," he said after the text was passed.
Malta's parliament has voted to allow same-sex couples to marry, three years after passing a law permitting civil partnerships pic.twitter.com/uRXOYgE1ww
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) July 13, 2017
The Malta Gay Rights Movement celebrated the new law with a party attended by hundreds in a square outside the prime minister's office in the capital, Valletta.
The Catholic Church was solidly opposed to the bill but gay rights activists hailed the result, rallying in downtown Valetta under the banner: "We've made history".
Once a staunchly conservative nation, Malta has been steadily adopting more progressive legislation in recent years.
In 2011, the country voted in a referendum to allow divorce, and in 2014 it approved civil partnerships.
Malta is the 24th country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage, coming just two weeks after German MPs approved a similar measure in June.
