A strong majority in staunchly Catholic Croatia has voted to outlaw same-sex marriage in a referendum sought by a Church-backed group but strongly opposed by rights groups.
A total of 64.84 per cent of voters said "yes" to the question of whether they wanted to amend the constitution to include a definition of marriage as a "union between a woman and a man", according to partial results from around one-third of polling stations released by the electoral commission on Sunday.
Croatia's current constitution does not define marriage.
A total of 34.56 per cent of voters said "no", the results showed.
Passions ran high in Croatia ahead of the vote, with the Church-backed "yes" camp citing the defence of traditional family values, and their opponents accusing them of discrimination against gays.
However, three hours before voting ended, the turnout was a rather low 26.75 per cent, the electoral commission said.
Under Croatian law, a referendum does not require a majority voter turnout to be valid.
The centre-left government, rights activists and prominent public figures have all spoken out against the measure.
But the recent unveiling of a government bill enabling gay couples to register as "life partners" sparked fears among conservatives in Croatia - which joined the EU in July - that same-sex marriage would be next.
"I'm a father of three children and that explains everything," Krunoslav Knezevic told AFP in reference to his "yes" vote.
"Marriage is a union of a woman and a man designed so that children are born in it. I'm not certain that a same-sex couple can have children in a natural way," he added ironically.
In May, a Church-backed group called "In the Name of the Family" collected almost 700,000 signatures seeking a nationwide vote on the definition of marriage.
"Marriage is the basis of family and family is the basis of any society, including Croatian," the leader of the initiative, Zeljka Markic, told AFP.
"This is not about discrimination, it's simply that Croatian citizens have the right to say whether for them marriage is a union of a woman and a man."
Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic labelled the vote "sad and senseless" and voiced hope it was the last vote on such an issue.
