When did gay marriage become known

InDenmark became the first country to recognise same-sex unions through what were called 'registered partnerships'. Other Scandinavian and northern European countries followed suit.

How is same-sex marriage in the US changing?

I think there was just a when did gay marriage become known cultural conversation, and as more and more states started to allow same-sex couples to marry, the main kinds of images that we would see in the news media were happy, excited couples who were thrilled to be able to get married.

It ultimately meant that you couldn't really any longer say that you really had a good reason to treat gays differently. One of the leaders of the key parties was an openly gay man who insisted that a pledge to enact marriage equality was put into the coalition agreement.

So everything was aligned in to make this to happen first in the Netherlands. Twelve of the further 15 countries that have legalised same-sex marriage since then are in Europe and include Spain and France, where religious opposition through the Catholic Church was strong.

Although there was a bitter fight over the issue in France, ultimately Socialist governments legalised same-sex marriage in both places Spain inFrance in In the United States, the roots of the campaign for marriage equality go back further than the first legal challenges in the s, says William Eskridge, professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School.

Some of them—a very small minority, admittedly—aspired toward legal recognition of their unions, which in the s and the s was at best a pipe dream, and at worst a delusion. In the s, however, after the famous Stonewall riots oflesbian and gay couples became much more open.

More of them came out of the closet not just as lesbian and gay individuals, but also as committed partners. Same-sex marriage activists scored their first significant legal success in the state of Hawaii in when the Hawaii Supreme Court suggested in the case of Baehr v Lewin that the denial of marriage to same-sex couples might be sex discrimination, forbidden under the Hawaii constitution.

The success of the Hawaii case generated a nationwide backlash against marriage equality, which culminated in with the adoption—by a huge, bipartisan congressional majority—of the Defence of Marriage Act. This law protected states against recognition of same-sex unions and locked in the permanent exclusion of lesbian and gay married couples from spousal obligations and benefits in the federal laws and regulations.

As in Australia, American family and marriage law exists on both the state and the federal level. In the years following the US Defence of Marriage Act, although most states passed constitutional amendments against same-sex marriage, many, when did gay marriage become known California and Vermont, also passed bills recognising the ongoing committed relationships of gay and lesbian couples.

A seismic shift occurred inwhen the highest court in Massachusetts decided that it was unconstitutional for the state to keep same-sex couples from marrying. Since the first marriages in Massachusetts inthe US battle over marriage equality has taken place at the state level, with judgments in state supreme courts, bills passed in state parliaments and changes to state constitutions, sometimes through citizen-initiated referendums.

Inthe US Supreme Court began hearing a number of law suits and ultimately, instruck down a significant part of the Defence of Marriage Act, although it stopped short of determining whether gay Americans had a constitutional right to marry. After that Supreme Court decision, couples and their lawyers filed lawsuits across the country.

Courts began to rule that they could not see any reason to keep same-sex couples from getting married and that therefore it was unconstitutional to treat same-sex couples differently. As a result, by October,the number of states that allowed same-sex couples to marry doubled, rising from about 15 to Oral arguments were heard in April and a decision is expected later this month.

If, as expected, the court finds bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, it will effectively legalise it nationally. In the background to this long legal process, there have been enormous social and cultural changes in the US. LGBT people in the US are also much more visible; there are lots more characters on television shows, there are many more famous people coming out who are public figures.

Those people have families and they have neighbours and they have co-workers, and when people saw them get married sometimes literally right there at their wedding ceremonies, I think it just got harder to think that this is something that's going to bring down civilisation.

Public opinion polls show that a majority of Americans believe that lesbian and gay couples who want to get married ought to have the same rights as straight couples, although about a third of the country is opposed. There is also marked regional variation. In the Deep South, for example, the numbers do not reflect the national figures.

Older Americans tend to be unenthusiastic about marriage equality—divided. Americans under the age of 35 are overwhelmingly either in favour of marriage equality or okay with it. That's a phenomenon that has driven a remarkable about face in American public opinion.