Status of same-sex marriage which includes same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption. The bill was approved by parliament, but rejected by voters in a 2015 referendum. On 24 February 2017, a new law came into effect which gives same-sex partnerships all the legal rights of marriages, with the exception of adoption and in-vitro fertilisation. Spain became the third country in the world (after the Netherlands and Belgium) to legalize same-sex marriage. After being elected in June 2004, Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero restated his pre-election pledge to push for legalization of same-sex marriage. On 1 October 2004, the Spanish Government approved a bill
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero other hand, defended the theory that the anger of the two Socialist AMs was caused by Zapatero's broken promise about the referred distribution of power within the Madrid section of the Socialist Party. That promise would have been made some months before the crisis in exchange of support for one of his more immediate collaborators (Trinidad Jiménez), who wanted to become the Socialist candidate for mayor of Madrid (the Spanish capital). Zapatero's team had entered into contact with José Luis Balbás through Enrique Martínez and Jesús Caldera (then Minister of Labor) In April 2000, Zapatero, Caldera and José Blanco had