Same-sex Marriage
On April 1st, 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage, the marriage of two people of the same gender identity or sex. This was celebrated by the live broadcasting of 4 queer couples that got married at exactly 00:00 on April 1st.
In the years that followed, many countries would follow the Netherlands’ lead and also legalise same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage is currently legally performed and recognised in 34 (35 as of January 1st, 2024) countries (and counting). The countries in which same-sex marriage is legal are:
Details
- The Netherlands (2001)
- Belgium (2003)
- Spain (2005)
- Canada (2005)
- South Africa (2006)
- Norway (2009)
- Sweden (2009)
- Portugal (2010)
- Iceland (2010)
- Argentina (2010)
- Denmark (2012)
- Brazil (2013)
- France (2013)
- Uruguay (2013)
- New Zealand (2013)
- England (2014)
- Wales (2014)
- Scotland (2014)
- Luxembourg (2015)
- United States of America (2015)
- Ireland (2015)
- Colombia (2016)
- Finland (2017)
- Malta (2017)
- Germany (2017)
- Australia (2017)
- Austria (2019)
- Taiwan (2019)
- Ecuador (2019)
- Northern Ireland (2020) [the final jurisdiction in the United Kingdom]
- Costa Rica (2020)
- Chile (2022)
- Switzerland (2022)
- Slovenia (2022)
- Cuba (2022)
- Mexico (2022)
- Andorra (2023)
- Estonia (2024)
Unfortunately, in a lot of countries, it is still illegal for same-sex couples to get married, or even to be gay. However, progress is still being made with parliaments around the world recognising more and more same-sex couple rights. We hope that more countries around the world will soon legalise same-sex marriage.
“What we need is not law-abiding love, but love-abiding law”
– Abhijik Naskar