Estonia takes Big step Forward with Marriage Equality

The 2023 LGBT pride parade in Tallinn, Estonia, with participants from Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. (LGBT Association Estonia via Courthouse News)

TALLINN, Estonia (CN) — For decades, same-sex Estonian couples could only register as co-habitants or domestic partners. As of 2024, they have the same right to marry as heterosexual couples.

Minister for Social Protection Signe Riisalo underlined that the new law “ends years of legal confusion and ensures a sense of security,” as Estonia becomes the first post-Soviet state to officially legalize same-sex marriage.

Neighboring Baltic countries Latvia and Lithuania saw their governments taking steps in the same direction in 2023, including by allowing new forms to register partnerships. Yet weddings remain an option only for male-female couples in many eastern and central European countries.   

Therefore, many call it a huge step that the Estonian Parliament, spearheaded by Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and her Reform Party, in coalition with the Social Democrats and Estonia 200, approved changes to the existing law last summer.

Mattis Meekler called the change a significant sign of the country’s newfound independence after years of being ruled by Russia.

“Now, we allow people to be free and make decisions on who they want to marry and create a family with. Marriage signifies shared values and love between two people, irrespective of gender, and it entails rights to support, and legal protection in face of challenges,” he said.

“This law means that I am seen as an equal member of society, not a minority,” Meekler added.

At the Estonian LGBT Association in the capital, Tallinn, cooperation officer Eeva Koplimets welcomed the law, saying it symbolizes the “jump” Estonians have undertaken in understanding and accepting gay and lesbian people.

A 2023 survey from research company Turu-uuringute backs up her view, showing that over half of the population believes that gays and lesbians should be protected by law from discrimination.

Koplimets said that the association had been advocating for same-sex marriage for a long time, because married couples have more rights. For example, a formal marriage means that both partners can register as legal parents upon giving birth to a baby conceived with the help of a donor.

“Marriage also gives you better protection," Koplimets said. "For example, after Ukraine was attacked, it was difficult for people who were not family members on paper to travel from Russia to Estonia. The cohabitation agreement specifically discriminated against same-sex couples,” she said. The agreement specified that a partner's right to move to Estonia only applied to married couples.

Co-habitation legislation passed Parliament in 2013.

On paper, it allowed same-sex couples to register officially and guaranteed the same rights as other spouses. However, political obstruction of its implementation made it difficult to use co-habitation privileges in practice, Koplimets argued.

For example, she said, it was very expensive to draw up inheritance papers under the co-habitation act, so in practice, few couples did. Also, both partners still had to register as “single” when signing a housing contract. 

However, the new law will also fix the old obstructions for civil partnerships, so it will make life easier for both married and unmarried people. 

Keio Soomelt, a young Estonian who has lived in abroad with his boyfriend since June, said the new law will simplify his life.

“When I applied for a Japanese visa, it was an issue that we were only registered as civil partners. We found it difficult to locate and obtain the right documents, but now, we can just apply for one official statement from the Estonian state,” he explained.

On an emotional level, Soomelt said he finally felt like a citizen of his own state.

“Now we are all just treated as couples. It doesn’t matter which sex we have.”

Over 30 countries worldwide have legalized same-sex marriage, including recent legislation in Andorra, Cuba and Slovenia. The small Baltic nation of Estonia, with a population of 1.3 million people, thus writes itself into a select group in modern legal history.  

The next political advocacy goal for the Estonian LGBT Association is to secure faster medical hormone replacement treatments for transgender people, Koplimets said. Now, it can take more than three years to get initial permission from a selected government health committee, and waiting lists continue to grow.

Yet she underlined how big a civil rights victory same-sex marriage is in Estonia, as it shows that the country is modernizing fast.

“Not long ago, we were part of the Soviet Union, where it was forbidden to even talk about homosexuality. When Western countries started publicly speaking about these topics, we still couldn’t. So, we are very forward-moving these days,” she said.

It takes one month to process marriage registrations, so the first Estonian same-sex couples will be legally married in February