Same-Sex Marriage - Britannica Online Encyclopedia

9/17/2019 Same-sex marriage -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia
Same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage, the practice of marriage
between two men or between two women. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Although same-sex marriage has been regulated
Introduction
through law, religion, and custom in most
countries of the world, the legal and social Cultural ideals of marriage and sexual
partnership
responses have ranged from celebration on the
one hand to criminalization on the other. Religious and secular expectations of
marriage and sexuality
Some Same-sex marriage and the law
scholars, most The future of same-sex marriage
notably the
Same-sex marriage around the world
Yale professor
and historian
John Boswell (1947–94), have argued that same-sex
unions were recognized by the Roman Catholic Church
same-sex marriage in medieval Europe, although others have disputed this
Same-sex couple exchanging rings during claim. Scholars and the general public became
their marriage ceremony in Pittsburgh, 2014. increasingly interested in the issue during the late 20th
© Gene J. Puskar—
century, a period when attitudes toward homosexuality
AP/REX/Shutterstock.com
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
https://www.britannica.com/print/article/753687 1/13
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 exibility 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 re ect and support
each other, the countries that had reached consensus on the issue by the early 2000s tended
to have a single dominant religious af liation 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 ndings of a
conference of Evangelical Lutheran bishops (representing the state religion) had helped
smooth the way for the rst 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 of cial 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 dif cult to reach. On the other hand, the
Netherlands—the rst 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; de nitions 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 rst 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 de ned
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 dif cult 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 speci c
group from the full rights of marriage was illegally discriminatory. For advocates of the
community-bene t perspective, all the legal perquisites associated with heterosexual

marriage should be available to any committed couple.
In contrast to these positions, self-identi ed “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 re ect the actual practices of humanity.
Queer advocates contended that marriage is an institution of “hetero-normality” that forces
individuals into ill- tting 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
rami cations; 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 “ x” 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 rst
country to establish registered partnerships—an attenuated version of marriage—for same-
sex couples. Soon thereafter similar laws, generally using speci c 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 re ection 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 arti cial 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 rst Latin American country to legalize
same-sex civil unions nationwide; the legislation became effective the following year.
Some jurisdictions opted to speci cally apply the honori c 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 rst 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 rst decade of the 2000s, a Eurobarometer poll (carried out by the
European Commission) found that four- fths 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- fth 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 rst country outside Europe to pass legislation legalizing same-
sex marriage. Thereafter, South Africa (2006) and Argentina (2010) were the rst African and
Latin American countries, respectively, to legalize same-sex marriage. New Zealand (2013)
became the rst 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 rst 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 speci cally 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 rst 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 de nition of who might or might not
participate in such a partnership. Soon after this nding, Hawaiian legislators added such a
de nition 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 bene ts normally afforded to a surviving spouse or
employment-based bene ts 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 de ned 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. Of cials in some smaller jurisdictions, notably San
Francisco, joined the controversy in early 2004 by issuing marriage licenses in de ance 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 de ned 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 af rmed the laws. As the electorate in
Maine simultaneously reversed its previous decision, the three states became the rst in the
country to approve same-sex marriage at the ballot box.
Broadly re ecting the community-bene t 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 re ected the procreative position and frequently invoked biblical
exegeses or other religious doctrine to support claims that marriage, strictly de ned, should
be available only to heterosexual couples. Advocates of both perspectives cited various and
con icting 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 signi cant events occurred at the federal
level. Pres. Barack Obama, who during his initial years in of ce had endorsed only civil unions
for same-sex couples, in May became the rst 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.
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 brie y performed
same-sex marriages prior to their suspension. U.S.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced that those
marriages would be recognized by the federal
same-sex marriage: U.S. demonstration
government, and in February 2014 he introduced a
Demonstrators in favour of same-sex Department of Justice policy to grant equal protection
marriage protesting in front of the U.S.
and treatment to all lawful marriages in the United
Supreme Court building, Washington, D.C.,
States. In October the U.S. Supreme Court declined to
2013.
Doug Mills—The New York Times/Redux review appeals of federal court decisions in ve 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.
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
White House Kingdom, for example, legislatures (and the executives
derived from them) were instrumental in the success or
People gathering in Lafayette Park to see
the White House illuminated with rainbow failure of such laws. In other countries, particularly those
colours in commemoration of the Supreme with federal political systems and strong judiciaries, such
Court's ruling that effectively legalized same-
as Canada, South Africa, and the United States, the
sex marriage, June 2015.
courts played a vital role. For yet another group of
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Images
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.

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.

1
Countries with same-sex marriage
country year effective
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
1
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.
2
Same-sex marriage is legal in England, Wales, and Scotland.
1
Countries with same-sex marriage
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
2
United Kingdom civil partnership 2005
1
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.
2
Same-sex marriage is legal in England, Wales, and Scotland.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen, Corrections Manager.
CITATION INFORMATION
ARTICLE TITLE: Same-sex marriage
WEBSITE NAME: Encyclopaedia Britannica
PUBLISHER: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
DATE PUBLISHED: 27 September 2018
URL: https://www.britannica.com/topic/same-sex-marriage
ACCESS DATE: September 17, 2019

Same-Sex Marriage - Britannica Online Encyclopedia

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9/17/2019 Same-sex marriage -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

Cultural ideals of marriage and sexual partnership

Religious and secular expectations of marriage and

In contrast to the procreative model of marriage, advocates of the legalization of same-sex

From this perspective, the devaluation of same-sex intimacy is immoral because it

community-bene t perspective, all the legal perquisites associated with heterosexual

In contrast to these positions, self-identi ed “queer” theorists and activists sought to

Same-sex marriage and the law

In contrast, the acceptance of same-sex partnerships was particularly apparent in northern

Interestingly—and perhaps as a re ection of tensions between the marriage-for-procreation

voters in California passed a referendum, Proposition 8, that de ned marriage as a union

Between December 2013 and August 2014, federal

The future of same-sex marriage

Same-sex marriage around the world

Same-sex marriage around the world

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