Furthermore, today’s voting was only a legislative reaffirmation of the arrangement that has been in place in Slovenia since July this year.

Slovenia is the first among former European socialist countries where people – regardless of their sexual orientation – enter into the same type of union, namely, marriage. There are no differences in name or the resulting rights.

We do not discriminate people in Slovenia because they may be different from us. And that is why every same-sex couple can marry and apply to adopt a child under the same conditions as a heterosexual couple.

Only when all individuals – regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, skin colour, religion, disability, material standing, national minority status or any other personal circumstance, including sexual orientation – are accepted in our midst as equals can we make progress as a society, pursuing the path of courage, not of fear."