As Supreme Court hears same-sex marriage petitions, a look at which country legalised it first

By Chingkheinganbi Mayengbam: The Supreme Court is hearing a batch of petitions seeking legal recognition of same-sex marriage in India. As the country waits for the top court’s verdict, let us take a quick walk down the LGBT memory lane and see where the first same-sex marriage took place.

Before we even entered the 21st century, Denmark became the first country in the world to offer official recognition to same-sex couples, allowing them to register as domestic partners. The recognition stopped short of calling such unions ‘marriages’. Six gay couples were legally joined in ‘registered partnerships’ on October 2, 1989 in a union that gave them most rights as married heterosexuals, but not the right to adopt or obtain joint custody of a child.

ALSO READ | Key takeaways from Day 3 hearing on same-sex marriage

The groundbreaking legalisation of same-sex marriage happened a couple of years later in the Netherlands in 2000. The Dutch Parliament passed a bill recognising same-sex marriages in December 2000. The legislation gave same-sex couples the right to marry, divorce and adopt children. The change in the law came from altering a single sentence in the country’s civil marriage statute, which now read, “A marriage can be contracted by two people of different or the same sex.”

The legislation took effect on April 1, 2001. With that, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legally recognise same-sex marriages.

To celebrate the historical moment, four same-sex couples — three gay couples and one lesbian couple — said ‘I do’ as the clock hit midnight at Amsterdam’s city hall on April 1, 2001. Amsterdam’s then Mayor, Job Cohen, officiated the weddings and told the couples, “There are two reasons to rejoice. You are celebrating your marriage, and you are also celebrating your right to be married.″

In 2021, on the 20th anniversary of their historic weddings, Gay Ireland News & Entertainment reported that all the couples stood the test of time and stayed together apart from one couple — Peter Wittebrood-Lemke’s husband, Frank Wittebrood, died in 2011.

Since the introduction of the law in 2000, thousands of same-sex couples have married in the Netherlands.

For Denmark, it was only in 2012 that the country legalised same-sex marriage, allowing same-sex couples to marry in both civil ceremonies and religious ceremonies.

After the decriminalisation of Section 377 in 2018, the Supreme Court’s decision in the same-sex marriage case will be closely watched in India and abroad. Currently, same-sex marriage is legally recognised in 34 countries and now we wait to see if India joins the list.

ALSO READ | Centre wrong to say idea of same-sex marriage urban elitist concept: Supreme Court