X Factor's Saara Aalto praises new gay marriage law in Finland
- Published
X Factor runner-up Saara Aalto says she feels "amazing" after gay marriage became legal in her native Finland.
She proposed to her fiancée Meri Sopanen over Twitter after the law went through on 1 March.
She actually got engaged to Meri in August last year - but gay couples have had to wait until now to be able to tie the knot.
The 29-year-old singer has been fighting for same-sex marriage in Finland since 2013.
"It's about love and we finally are a loving country. It's really important to us," Saara tells Newsbeat.
"We've all been waiting for this so long - years and years.
"Other countries already had that law and we really had to fight for it."
She adds: "All the straight people and gay people, we all came together and were like, 'we have to have this law, we have to work for it together'".
There were some people who were against the legislation but parliament backed the new law two weeks ago.
"I'm just really happy that love won," Saara says.
"There is not enough love in this world anyway, we have to love each other. I think it's a crime to prevent love from happening."
Although Saara's fiancée Meri didn't actually reply to the proposal tweet, Saara does assure us that she "said yes in private."
After Meri originally proposed to Saara in August 2016, Saara said she wanted to return the favour now the law was actually passed.
"I just really wanted to propose to her this time," she says.
She says that the original proposal came totally unexpected, two years to the date since they first got together.
"We were both so tired, I'd just washed my makeup off, I had my pyjamas on, and she was like, 'oh we had such a lovely day today, will you marry me?'," she says.
"I was like, 'you can't do it when I look like this, I don't have any makeup on, and I have my pyjamas on!'
"It was really cute because it was a natural moment".
Saara and Meri hope to have their wedding next August, two years after they got engaged and four years after they first met.
However, Saara, who is currently on the X Factor arena tour, is concentrating on her music career for the time being.
Luckily, Meri is her manager so the couple often travel together.
The new law means that gay couples are also allowed to adopt children, which Saara says is a possibility for her and Meri in the future - but at the moment, she says, their careers are taking priority.
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