Same-sex marriage and the law

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 (sharia) 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, Scotland in 2014, and Northern Ireland in 2020.

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.