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Same-sex marriage
Written By:
* The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
See Article History
Alternative Titles: same-sex partnership, same-sex union
Same-sex marriage, the practice of marriage between two men or between
two women. Although same-sex marriage has been regulated through law,
religion, and custom in most countries of the world, the legal and
social responses have ranged from celebration on the one hand to
criminalization on the other.
Some scholars, most notably the Yale professor and historian John
Boswell (1947–94), have argued that same-sex unions were recognized by
the Roman Catholic Church in medieval Europe, although others have
disputed this claim. Scholars and the general public became
increasingly interested in the issue during the late 20th century, a
period when attitudes toward homosexuality and laws regulating
homosexual behaviour were liberalized, particularly in western Europe
and the United States.
The issue of same-sex marriage frequently sparked emotional and
political clashes between supporters and opponents. By the early 21st
century, several jurisdictions, both at the national and subnational
levels, had legalized same-sex marriage; in other jurisdictions,
constitutional measures were adopted to prevent same-sex marriages from
being sanctioned, or laws were enacted that refused to recognize such
marriages performed elsewhere. That the same act was evaluated so
differently by various groups indicates its importance as a social
issue in the early 21st century; it also demonstrates the extent to
which cultural diversity persisted both within and among countries. For
tables on same-sex marriage around the world, in the United States, and
in Australia, see below.
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Cultural ideals of marriage and sexual partnership
Perhaps the earliest systematic analyses of marriage and kinship were
conducted by the Swiss legal historian Johann Jakob Bachofen (1861) and
the American ethnologist Lewis Henry Morgan (1871); by the mid-20th
century an enormous variety of marriage and sexual customs across
cultures had been documented by such scholars. Notably, they found that
most cultures expressed an ideal form of marriage and an ideal set of
marriage partners, while also practicing flexibility in the application
of those ideals.
Among the more common forms so documented were common-law marriage;
morganatic marriage, in which titles and property do not pass to
children; exchange marriage, in which a sister and a brother from one
family marry a brother and a sister from another; and group marriages
based on polygyny (co-wives) or polyandry (co-husbands). Ideal matches
have included those between cross-cousins, between parallel cousins, to
a group of sisters (in polygyny) or brothers (in polyandry), or between
different age sets. In many cultures the exchange of some form of
surety, such as bride service, bridewealth, or dowry, has been a
traditional part of the marriage contract.
Cultures that openly accepted homosexuality, of which there were many,
generally had nonmarital categories of partnership through which such
bonds could be expressed and socially regulated. Conversely, other
cultures essentially denied the existence of same-sex intimacy, or at
least deemed it an unseemly topic for discussion of any sort.
Religious and secular expectations of marriage and sexuality
Over time the historical and traditional cultures originally recorded
by the likes of Bachofen and Morgan slowly succumbed to the
homogenization imposed by colonialism. Although a multiplicity of
marriage practices once existed, conquering nations typically forced
local cultures to conform to colonial belief and administrative
systems. Whether Egyptian, Vijayanagaran, Roman, Ottoman, Mongol,
Chinese, European, or other, empires have long fostered (or, in some
cases, imposed) the widespread adoption of a relatively small number of
religious and legal systems. By the late 20th and early 21st centuries,
the perspectives of one or more of the world religions—Buddhism,
Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity—and their associated civil
practices were often invoked during national discussions of same-sex
marriage.
Perhaps because systems of religion and systems of civil authority
often reflect and support each other, the countries that had reached
consensus on the issue by the early 2000s tended to have a single
dominant religious affiliation across the population; many such places
had a single, state-sponsored religion. This was the case in both Iran,
where a strong Muslim theocracy had criminalized same-sex intimacy, and
Denmark, where the findings of a conference of Evangelical Lutheran
bishops (representing the state religion) had helped smooth the way for
the first national recognition of same-sex relationships through
registered partnerships. In other cases, the cultural homogeneity
supported by the dominant religion did not result in the application of
doctrine to the civic realm but may nonetheless have fostered a
smoother series of discussions among the citizenry: Belgium and Spain
had legalized same-sex marriage, for instance, despite official
opposition from their predominant religious institution, the Roman
Catholic Church.
The existence of religious pluralities within a country seems to have
had a less determinate effect on the outcome of same-sex marriage
debates. In some such countries, including the United States, consensus
on this issue was difficult to reach. On the other hand, the
Netherlands—the first country to grant equal marriage rights to
same-sex couples (2001)—was religiously diverse, as was Canada, which
did so in 2005.
Most of the world religions have at some points in their histories
opposed same-sex marriage for one or more of the following stated
reasons: homosexual acts violate natural law or divine intentions and
are therefore immoral; passages in sacred texts condemn homosexual
acts; and religious tradition recognizes only the marriage of one man
and one woman as valid. In the early 21st century, however, Judaism,
Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism all spoke with more than one voice
on this issue. Orthodox Judaism opposed same-sex marriage, while the
Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative traditions allowed for it.
Most Christian denominations opposed it, while the United Church of
Christ, the United Church of Canada, and the Religious Society of
Friends (Quakers) took a more favourable stand or allowed individual
churches autonomy in the matter. The Unitarian Universalist churches
and the gay-oriented Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community
Churches fully accepted same-sex marriage. Hinduism, without a sole
leader or hierarchy, allowed some Hindus to accept the practice while
others were virulently opposed. The three major schools of
Buddhism—Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana—stressed the attainment of
enlightenment as a basic theme; most Buddhist literature therefore
viewed all marriage as a choice between the two individuals involved.
Sexuality is but one of many areas where religious and civic authority
interact; definitions of the purpose of marriage is another. In one
view, the purpose of marriage is to ensure successful procreation and
child rearing. In another, marriage provides a—and perhaps
“the”—fundamental building block of stable communities, with
procreation as an incidental by-product. A third perspective holds that
marriage is an instrument of societal domination and so is not
desirable. A fourth is that relationships between consenting adults
should not be regulated by the government. Although most religions
subscribe to just one of these beliefs, it is not uncommon for two or
more viewpoints to coexist within a given society.
Proponents of the first view believe that the primary goal of marriage
is to provide a relatively uniform social institution through which to
produce and raise children. In their view, because male and female are
both necessary for procreation, the privileges of marriage should be
available only to opposite-sex couples. In other words, partnerships
involving sexual intimacy should have at least a notional potential for
procreation. From this perspective, the movement to legally recognize
same-sex marriage is a misguided attempt to deny the social, moral, and
biological distinctions that foster the continued existence of society
and so should be discouraged.
Because this view considers biological reproduction a sort of social
obligation, its advocates tended to frame individuals’ legal and moral
commitment to one another as a matter of genetic relatedness. In cases
of inheritance or custody, for instance, they generally defined the
parents’ legal duties to their biological children differently than
those to their stepchildren. Among groups who feel strongly that
same-sex marriage is problematic, there is also a tendency for the
legal relationships of spouses, parents, and children to converge.
Typically, these societies provide for the automatic inheritance of
property between spouses, and between parents and children, and allow
these close kin to co-own property without joint ownership contracts.
In addition, such societies often allow close kin a variety of
automatic privileges such as sponsoring immigration visas or making
medical decisions for one another; for those with whom one shares no
close kin relationship, these privileges typically require legal
interventions. Such legal circumventions are usually more difficult
for, and in some cases even prohibited to, same-sex couples.
In contrast to the procreative model of marriage, advocates of the
legalization of same-sex marriage generally believed that committed
partnerships involving sexual intimacy are valuable because they draw
people together to a singular degree and in singular ways. In this
view, such relationships are intrinsically worthy while also quite
distinct from (though not incompatible with) activities associated with
the bearing or raising of children. Sexual partnerships are one of a
number of factors that bond adults together into stable household
units. These households, in turn, form the foundation of a productive
society—a society in which, albeit incidentally, children, elders, and
others who may be relatively powerless are likely to be protected.
From this perspective, the devaluation of same-sex intimacy is immoral
because it constitutes arbitrary and irrational discrimination, thereby
damaging the community. Most same-sex marriage advocates further held
that international human rights legislation provided a universal
franchise to equal treatment under the law. Thus, prohibiting a
specific group from the full rights of marriage was illegally
discriminatory. For advocates of the community-benefit perspective, all
the legal perquisites associated with heterosexual marriage should be
available to any committed couple.
In contrast to these positions, self-identified “queer” theorists and
activists sought to deconstruct the paired oppositional categories
common in discussions of biology, gender, and sexuality (e.g.,
male-female, man-woman, gay-straight) and to replace these with
categories or continua that they believed better reflect the actual
practices of humanity. Queer advocates contended that marriage is an
institution of “hetero-normality” that forces individuals into
ill-fitting cultural categories and demonizes those who refuse to
accept those categories. For these reasons, they maintained that
consensual intimacy between adults should not be regulated and that
marriage should be disestablished as a cultural institution.
A fourth view, libertarianism, had different premises from queer theory
but somewhat similar ramifications; it proposed that government powers
should be strictly limited, generally to the tasks of maintaining civil
order, infrastructure, and defense. For libertarians, marriage
legislation of any sort—either the legalization or the prohibition of
same-sex marriage—fell outside of the role of government and was
unacceptable. As a result, many libertarians believed that marriage
should be “privatized” (i.e., removed from government regulation) and
that citizens should be able to form partnerships of their choosing.
Same-sex marriage and the law
Societies have resolved the intertwined issues of sexuality,
reproduction, and marriage in myriad ways. Their responses regarding
the morality, desirability, and administrative perquisites of same-sex
partnerships have been equally diverse. Notably, however, by the
beginning of the 21st century most countries opted for one of only
three legal resolutions to these intersecting problems: to ignore
same-sex partnerships, to criminalize them, or to grant them a status
similar or equal to that of heterosexual marriage. Many countries have
yet to reach a consensus on these issues. (See also marriage law.)
As noted above, many societies traditionally chose to ignore the issue
of same-sex marriage by treating same-sex intimacy as a subject
unsuitable for discussion. Many of these jurisdictions, as well as
those that actively criminalize same-sex unions, contended that
homosexuality and lesbianism are mental disorders and built their
public policies on this premise. In treating same-sex desire as a
psychiatric illness, these cultures moved same-sex intimacy and
marriage from the realm of civil regulations (the domain of contract
law) to that of public safety (the domain of criminal law). In such
societies, the possibility of arrest or institutionalization further
reinforced taboos on same-sex intimacy and discussions thereof,
typically driving such activities underground.
International
In the early 21st century the countries that most seriously penalized
same-sex relations tended to be in deeply conservative regions of the
world, particularly Islamic theocracies and some parts of Asia and
Africa. They often proscribed behaviours that other countries viewed as
subject to moral, rather than legal, regulation. The judicial systems
of many predominantly Muslim countries, for instance, invoke Islamic
law (Sharīʿah) in a wide range of contexts. A variety of sexual or
quasi-sexual acts, usually including same-sex intimacy, were
criminalized in these countries, and the penalties for these acts could
be as severe as execution. However, in a notable show of support for
transgender individuals in the late 20th century, Iranian Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini issued a legal decree, or fatwa, supporting
gender-reassignment surgery when undertaken by individuals who wished
to “fix” their physiology and thus become heterosexual in the eyes of
the law.
In contrast, the acceptance of same-sex partnerships was particularly
apparent in northern Europe and in countries with cultural ties to that
region. In 1989 Denmark became the first country to establish
registered partnerships—an attenuated version of marriage—for same-sex
couples. Soon thereafter similar laws, generally using specific
vocabulary (e.g., civil union, civil partnership, domestic partnership,
registered partnership) to differentiate same-sex unions from
heterosexual marriages, went into effect in Norway (1993), Sweden
(1995), Iceland (1996), the Netherlands (1998), and elsewhere in
Europe, including the United Kingdom (2005) and Ireland (2011).
Interestingly—and perhaps as a reflection of tensions between the
marriage-for-procreation and marriage-for-community-good positions
discussed above—many European countries initially prevented same-sex
couples from adoption and artificial insemination; by 2007, however,
most of these restrictions had been removed. Outside Europe, some
jurisdictions also adopted some form of same-sex partnership rights;
Israel recognized common-law same-sex marriage in the mid-1990s (the
Israeli Supreme Court further ruled in 2006 that same-sex marriages
performed abroad should be recognized), and same-sex civil unions went
into effect in New Zealand (2005) and in parts of Argentina, Australia,
Brazil, and Mexico in the early 21st century. In 2007 Uruguay became
the first Latin American country to legalize same-sex civil unions
nationwide; the legislation became effective the following year.
Some jurisdictions opted to specifically apply the honorific of
“marriage” to same-sex as well as heterosexual unions. In 2000 the
Netherlands revised its same-sex partnership law and the following year
became the first country to offer marriage to same-sex couples; several
other European countries subsequently legalized gay marriage. In 2003
the European Union mandated that all of its members pass laws
recognizing the same-sex marriages of fellow EU countries. As countries
began to legalize same-sex partnerships, public opinion, particularly
in Europe, began to shift in favour of full marriage rights for
same-sex unions. For example, by the middle of the first decade of the
2000s, a Eurobarometer poll (carried out by the European Commission)
found that four-fifths of the citizens of the Netherlands felt that
same-sex marriage should be legal throughout Europe; in a further seven
countries (Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Germany, and
the Czech Republic), a majority held a similar view. Nevertheless, in
other parts of Europe, particularly central and southern Europe,
support for same-sex marriage was quite low, often with fewer than
one-fifth of those polled favouring legalization. By the following
decade, polls indicated that roughly one-half of British citizens
approved of legalizing same-sex marriage in the United Kingdom; such
marriages were legalized in England and Wales in 2013, and Scotland
followed suit in 2014.
In 2005 Canada became the first country outside Europe to pass
legislation legalizing same-sex marriage. Thereafter, South Africa
(2006) and Argentina (2010) were the first African and Latin American
countries, respectively, to legalize same-sex marriage. New Zealand
(2013) became the first country in Oceania to do so. Elsewhere, Bermuda
legalized same-sex marriage in 2017, but the following year it passed a
bill that replaced such marriages with domestic partnerships. Bermuda
thus became the first country to repeal same-sex marriage.
In other countries, decisions on same-sex marriage were effectively
turned over to individual states or districts. In 2009 the Federal
District (Mexico City), separate from other Mexican jurisdictions,
legalized same-sex marriage. Soon after the law went into effect in
2010, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutional and that
all states in the country had to recognize same-sex marriages performed
in Mexico City. Gay marriage was later made legal, under the same
terms, elsewhere in the country. Similarly, shortly after Brazil
legalized same-sex civil unions in 2011, the Supreme Federal Court
ruled that sexual orientation could not be a pretext for denying a
couple the legal protections of marriage, although it stopped short of
specifically authorizing same-sex marriage at the federal level. In
response, several Brazilian states separately opted to allow for
same-sex marriages, which were considered valid throughout Brazil,
before the National Council of Justice approved a resolution in 2013
ensuring that such unions could be registered anywhere in the country.
Also in 2013, the Australian Capital Territory became the first
jurisdiction in Australia to pass a law permitting the marriage of
same-sex couples, although Australia’s High Court later struck down the
law within days of its having taken effect. In 2017 a majority of
Australians voted for same-sex marriage in a nonbinding referendum.
Shortly thereafter the country’s Parliament passed legislation
legalizing same-sex marriage, and it was signed into law in December
2017.
United States
In the United States the question of whether couples of the same sex
should be allowed to marry has roiled politics since at least 1993. In
that year the Supreme Court of Hawaii heard a case in which the
plaintiffs claimed that the state’s refusal to issue marriage licenses
to same-sex couples abrogated those individuals’ rights to equal
treatment under the law. The state, in turn, argued that it had a
compelling interest in preventing same-sex marriage, as that practice
would inherently damage the public good. The court found for the
plaintiffs, basing its argument on the law’s absence of a clear
definition of who might or might not participate in such a partnership.
Soon after this finding, Hawaiian legislators added such a definition
to the state constitution and thus made moot the issuing of marriage
licenses to same-sex partners.
Many Americans felt that the Hawaii court decision represented a
serious threat to social stability, and in 1996 the U.S. Congress
enacted the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). This legislation declared
that same-sex marriages would not be recognized for federal purposes,
such as the award of Social Security benefits normally afforded to a
surviving spouse or employment-based benefits for the partners of
federal employees. The act also restated existing law by providing that
no U.S. state or territory was required to recognize marriages from
elsewhere when it had strong policies to the contrary. Within a decade
of the federal act’s passage, almost all the states had enacted laws or
constitutional amendments declaring variously that marriage was legally
defined as a heterosexual institution, that same-sex marriages from
other states would not be recognized, or that same-sex marriage was
contrary to the public policies of the state.
Nonetheless, some states moved toward the legal recognition of same-sex
partnerships. In 1999 the Vermont Supreme Court declared that same-sex
couples were entitled under the state constitution to the same legal
rights as married heterosexual couples; shortly thereafter the state
legislature enacted a law creating “civil unions,” which conferred all
the rights and responsibilities of marriage but not the name. In 2003
California enacted a similar statute, calling the relationships
“domestic partnerships.”
Also in 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that the denial of
marriage licenses to same-sex couples violated the state constitution;
the court gave the state six months to comply with its order to remedy
the situation. The state soon began to issue marriage licenses for
same-sex couples, but these were quickly challenged and their legal
status over the long term remained uncertain. Officials in some smaller
jurisdictions, notably San Francisco, joined the controversy in early
2004 by issuing marriage licenses in defiance of local prohibitions;
these licenses were later found to be invalid. Subsequently, several
other states and Washington, D.C., either established same-sex civil
unions or adopted jurisdictionwide policies that accorded some spousal
rights to same-sex couples.
Early in 2008 the Supreme Courts of two states—California and
Connecticut—struck down state laws limiting marriage to the union
between a man and a woman. Later in 2008 the voters in California
passed a referendum, Proposition 8, that defined marriage as a union
between a man and a woman. Proposition 8 subsequently was ruled
unconstitutional in federal district court in August 2010 on the
grounds that the prohibition of same-sex marriage violated the due
process and equal protection clauses. Although advocates of the
referendum quickly sought to contest the decision, it was upheld by a
federal appeals court in February 2012. Referenda similar to
California’s Proposition 8 were approved in Arizona and Florida in 2008
and in North Carolina in 2012.
In April 2009 the Iowa Supreme Court overturned a state law that barred
gay marriage, and soon afterward the legislatures of Vermont, Maine,
and New Hampshire legalized same-sex marriage—though in November 2009
Maine voters repealed the law. By 2011 Washington, D.C., and New York
state had enacted similar legislation. In early 2012 bills allowing for
same-sex marriage were passed by legislatures in Maryland and
Washington state. Subsequent challenges to the laws made their
implementation contingent on the results of ballot referenda, and in
November voters in both states affirmed the laws. As the electorate in
Maine simultaneously reversed its previous decision, the three states
became the first in the country to approve same-sex marriage at the
ballot box.
Broadly reflecting the community-benefit rhetoric noted above, many
American legal scholars and same-sex marriage advocates developed
arguments that the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution
guaranteed the fundamental right to marry. Opposition arguments broadly
reflected the procreative position and frequently invoked biblical
exegeses or other religious doctrine to support claims that marriage,
strictly defined, should be available only to heterosexual couples.
Advocates of both perspectives cited various and conflicting
sociological studies in defense of their claims. At the beginning of
the 21st century a clear majority of the U.S. population opposed
same-sex marriage, but by 2010 about half of the population supported
legalization, and many of those opposed were open to the creation of
legally recognized partnerships for same-sex couples.
In 2012, as public debate on the issue persisted, two significant
events occurred at the federal level. Pres. Barack Obama, who during
his initial years in office had endorsed only civil unions for same-sex
couples, in May became the first sitting U.S. president to publicly
support same-sex marriage. In December the U.S. Supreme Court announced
that it would hear challenges to DOMA and to Proposition 8. The
following year the court declared DOMA to be unconstitutional “as a
deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the
Fifth Amendment,” and it vacated the appeals court’s ruling regarding
Proposition 8 on the grounds that the law’s defenders (a group of
private citizens) lacked standing to appeal the district court’s order.
same-sex marriage: U.S. demonstration
same-sex marriage: U.S. demonstrationDemonstrators in favour of
same-sex marriage protesting in front of the U.S. Supreme Court
building, Washington, D.C., 2013.Doug Mills—The New York Times/Redux
Between December 2013 and August 2014, federal judges in 14 states
overturned state bans of same-sex marriage. In all but two of those
states, the rulings were stayed, although some of the states briefly
performed same-sex marriages prior to their suspension. U.S. Attorney
General Eric Holder announced that those marriages would be recognized
by the federal government, and in February 2014 he introduced a
Department of Justice policy to grant equal protection and treatment to
all lawful marriages in the United States. In October the U.S. Supreme
Court declined to review appeals of federal court decisions in five
states, which effectively made same-sex marriage legal in those
jurisdictions. As an indirect consequence, same-sex marriage was soon
legalized by U.S. district courts in several additional states. By the
end of 2014, the number of states where such marriages were legal had
reached 35—more than twice as many as at the beginning of the year.
In January 2015 the Supreme Court agreed to review a November 2014
decision of the Court of Appeals of the Sixth Circuit that had upheld
state laws and constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage or
the recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions.
In June, in Obergefell v. Hodges, the court reversed both of the Sixth
Circuit’s holdings, thereby legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50
states.
White House
White HousePeople gathering in Lafayette Park to see the White House
illuminated with rainbow colours in commemoration of the Supreme
Court's ruling that effectively legalized same-sex marriage, June
2015.Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Images
The future of same-sex marriage
At the turn of the 21st century it was clear that the evolution of
rights for same-sex couples depended to a great extent upon the
interplay of a country’s institutional forces. In parliamentary unitary
systems, such as those of the Netherlands, Spain, and the United
Kingdom, for example, legislatures (and the executives derived from
them) were instrumental in the success or failure of such laws. In
other countries, particularly those with federal political systems and
strong judiciaries, such as Canada, South Africa, and the United
States, the courts played a vital role. For yet another group of
polities, such as Switzerland and many U.S. states, institutional rules
enabled voters to take a direct role in the passage or rejection of
legislation.
In countries where consensus has yet to be reached on this issue, the
debate is unlikely to be resolved quickly or easily. In some parts of
the world, such as those plagued by war or natural disasters, same-sex
marriage is simply not an urgent matter. In others, the broad spectrum
of notions about sexuality and the purpose of marriage is compounded by
national pluralism and a tendency for secularism and religiosity to
intersect in complex and unexpected ways.
Same-sex marriage around the world
The table provides a list of countries that have legalized same-sex
marriage, as well as selected countries that offer some other legal
status for same-sex couples.
CAPTION: Same-sex marriage around the world
Countries with same-sex marriage^1
country year effective
^1Same-sex marriage is also legal in parts of Mexico, and marriages
performed in those jurisdictions are recognized throughout the country.
See also footnote 2.
^2Same-sex marriage is legal in England, Wales, and Scotland.
Argentina 2010
Australia 2017
Belgium 2003
Brazil 2013
Canada 2005
Colombia 2016
Denmark 2012
Finland 2017
France 2013
Germany 2017
Iceland 2010
Ireland 2015
Luxembourg 2015
Malta 2017
Netherlands 2001
New Zealand 2013
Norway 2009
Portugal 2010
South Africa 2006
Spain 2005
Sweden 2009
United States 2015
Uruguay 2013
Selected countries with other legal status for same-sex couples
country status year effective
Andorra civil union 2014
Austria registered partnership 2010
Chile civil union 2015
Croatia life partnership 2014
Cyprus civil partnership 2015
Czech Republic registered partnership 2006
Ecuador stable union 2008
Estonia registered partnership 2016
Germany registered life partnership 2001
Greece civil partnership 2015
Hungary registered partnership 2009
Italy civil union 2016
Liechtenstein registered partnership 2011
Malta civil union 2014
Slovenia registered same-sex partnership 2006
Switzerland registered partnership 2007
United Kingdom^2 civil partnership 2005
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
* United States
United States: The Barack Obama administration
…the end of June the Supreme Court ruled on a pair of landmark
cases. In Obergefell v. Hodges, it found state bans on same-sex
marriage and on recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other
jurisdictions to be unconstitutional under the due process and
equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. That…
* Spain
Spain: Zapatero and a new generation of Socialist leadership
…which were the legalization of same-sex marriage and the
criminalization of domestic violence. Zapatero had long stressed
the importance of the immigration issue for Spain, and his approach
to it was very different from that of most other European
governments; in 2005, for example, he implemented a program that
enabled…
* Australia
Australia: Domestic issues
…support for the legalization of same-sex marriage in a nonbinding
postal referendum. Turnbull pledged that his government would work
to revise Australia’s Marriage Amendment Act 2004, which defined
marriage as being between a man and a woman, and in December 2017
Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of marriage equality.…
* Canada
Canada: Third premiership
…nature of Canadian law regarding same-sex marriage was brought
into question by Justice Department lawyers responding to a pair of
divorce cases. At issue was the legality of a requirement that
same-sex married couples must live in Canada for one year before
seeking divorce. More controversial was the new assertion…
* Ireland
Ireland: Social and religious changes
…in the world to approve same-sex marriage by referendum when 62
percent of participating voters gave their approval to the measure
allowing it. This result and the election of the openly gay
Varadkar reflected a profound shift in Irish society away from its
traditional social conservatism and toward progressive values…
ADDITIONAL MEDIA
* gay rights movement: Proposition 8
More About Same-sex marriage
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* Anglican Church of Canada
+ In Anglican Church of Canada
* Argentina
+ In Argentina: The Menem era and the 21st century
* Australia
+ In Australia: Domestic issues
+ In Malcolm Turnbull
* Belgium
+ In Belgium: Federalized Belgium
* Canada
+ In Canada: Third premiership
+ In Ontario: History
+ In Paul Martin
* Costa Rica
+ In Costa Rica: Costa Rica in the 21st century
* Ecuador
+ In Ecuador: Ecuador from the late 20th century
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Same-sex marriage
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