Finland: Marriage equality supporters gather largest number of petition signatures in the country's history

Although Finland legalized domestic partnerships in 2002, the country has not gotten around to sealing the deal with full marriage equality.

That may change now that a petition has been submitted with three times the necessary number of signatures to bring the issue to Finland's Parliament:

Supporters gathered 162,000 signatures in favor of it in the Scandinavian nation of 5.4 million people. The figure represents the largest number of signatures collected in favor of a citizen’s initiative in Finland and only 50,000 signatures, or less than a third of 162,000, were needed for the Parliament to have to consider the initiative. The Finnish Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee voted narrowly not to consider a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in February but thanks to the up-swell of public support lawmakers will have to look at the issue again.

(source)