The Washington Post just posted this throwback to 2001 and it's an interesting history lesson on the gheys and their marriage rights
Quote:
With a landmark Supreme Court decision Friday, the United States became the 17th country to legalize same-sex marriage. But what was the first?
The Danish were the first to grant same-sex unions almost the exact same rights as marriages, with its Registered Partnerships Act of 1989. Then during the 1990s, a number of other countries and regions introduced laws that granted same-sex unions similar rights to marriages. It wasn't until 2001, however, that a country fully legalized same-sex marriage. That country was the Netherlands.
The Dutch law went further than Denmark's, effectively eliminating any distinction at all between heterosexual and homosexual marriage. When it passed parliament in 2000 (it would not become law until a few months later), The Washington Post's Keith Richburg noted that it seemed to "add to the Netherlands' reputation in Europe and beyond for enacting laws that many hail as signs of tolerance and others decry as laxity."
"The discussion was years ago," a spokeswoman for the Dutch Embassy told The Post. "We are always a bit ahead of other countries. We had those discussions years before other countries even started."
So how has the Netherlands coped since legalizing gay marriage? Even some of its fiercest Dutch critics now say it was a good move.
"At the time I opposed same-sex marriage, I was led by fear," Hannie van Leeuwen, leader of the Christian Democrat party and opponent to the gay marriage law, was reported to have said just a few years later. "Having seen so many happy gay and lesbian couples getting married, I realize I was wrong. I don't understand anymore what made me treat gays and lesbians differently from other citizens."
And evidence suggests that while discrimination was far from totally eradicated by the Netherland's gay marriage law, the institution of marriage has suffered no ill effects at all.
"Heterosexual couples did not turn away from the institution of marriage, nor did the world isolate my country," Boris Dittrich, a former member of Netherland's parliament, wrote in 2011. "Civilization as we know it did not end. And, as far as I can tell, God did not punish the Netherlands."
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Acceptance rate for LGBT people in the Netherlands is at 90% right now
It's crazy how far ahead of the rest of the world we've always been tbh...
Whether it be recreational drug policy, gay marriage, euthanasia, prostitution
Congrats America!
#LoveWins
