Luxembourg, France, And Belgium - 1488 Words

Nestled between Germany, France, and Belgium, Luxembourg is one of the smallest countries in the world. In fact, it is the 20th smallest, having only about 500,000 inhabitants (Luxembourg, 2005). The country is also a member of the European Union, also referred to as the EU. Luxembourgish, or Là «tzebuergesch, is a German dialect that is spoken by the people of Luxembourg. Because of their geographic location French, German, and Dutch are often spoken (Luxembourg, 2005). In 2013, Luxembourg became the first country in the world to have both an openly gay Prime Minister and deputy (vice) Prime Minister. When the Prime Minster, Xavier Bettel, announced that he would announce push forward legislation that would drastically change the countries†¦show more content†¦The vote took place in the Chamber of Deputies, and the bill passed by a landslide. The vote had a result of 56 in favor of passing of the legislation out of the 60 members in the chamber. Aside from gay and lesbian marriage rights, the country has show progress in other aspects of the rights and liberties of the gay and lesbian community. In the past decade or so, Luxembourg has made great strides and has granted many new rights to the gay and lesbian citizens. While the French jurisdiction still controlled Luxembourg during the 18th century, homosexual acts were decriminalized. This occurred in 1794 (Yee 2010), and this act can be seen as the first step towards increasing gay and lesbian rights in Luxembourg. More recently, in 2004, Luxembourg started to legally recognize same-sex partnerships, commonly referred to as civil unions in the United States. The Partenariat, or partnership, often referred to as PACS, gave homosexual couples many new rights, which weren’t recognized prior to the act. The rights included, as found in the law include, tax benefits that heterosexual couples had, social security benefits, the partners would also be held liable for each other’s debts; however, the rights did not include joint adoption of children. Luxembourg would also not recognize partnerships that were granted by other countries under their law. If necessary,