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.
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.
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 favorable 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 behaviour 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.
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.
Same-sex marriage around the world
Countries with same-sex marriage, country year effective
Same-sex marriage is also legal in parts of Mexico, and marriages performed in those jurisdictions are
recognized throughout the country. See also footnote 2.
Same-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 civil partnership 2005