Although same-sex marriage implications have existed for as far back as in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it has only been thousands of years later that same-sex marriage is finally allowed. It had taken over four decades of legal battles and efforts for peoples’ efforts to finally be recognized on June 26th, 2015 when same-sex marriage finally becomes legal in the United States of America.
What were some of the early legal battles concerning gay marriage? Two University of Minnesota students, Richard John ‘Jack’ Baker and James Michael McConnell, tried to apply for a marriage license back in 1970. However, at the Hennepin County District, Court Clerk Gerald Nelson denied the application simply because the two people requesting for the license were both male. Because Minnesota law on marriage did not specify what gender “marriage” consisted of exactly, Baker and McConnell tried to sue Nelson. The trial court sided with Nelson, and even the Minnesota Supreme Court did too. As a matter of fact, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that “the institution of marriage as a union of man and woman uniquely involving the procreating and rearing of children within the family is as old as the book of Genesis.” Interestingly enough though, no official statute stating that same-sex marriage was illegal was passed until 1973 in Maryland. It was included as a sentence under its Family Law Code.
Future cases concerning gay marriage were just as fruitless as those aforementioned. The first domestic partnership law was proposed in 1979 in California, which was a band-aid solution to the slowly but ever-growing social problem. Citizens were not discouraged; in fact, there was a mass same-sex wedding ceremony in 1987. One after another, states pass their own laws similar to that of a domestic partnership, such as being allowed to be declared a “family” or to receive the same benefits as a heterosexual couple while not being considered legally married.
The first step towards the legalization of same-sex marriage was in 2001, when the Netherlands became the first country to allow legal homosexual weddings and couples. They are given the same rights as those of heterosexual couples, and all references to gender in laws concerning matrimony then became gender-neutral. This firm initiative slowly sparked other countries to follow suit, such as Belgium in 2003 and Spain in 2005. Fast forward a decade later, the United States, too, finally joined in and legalized gay marriage in all fifty states. Marriage is the union of love, fidelity, sacrifice, devotion, and family and such is not gender-specific. Cheers to the United States!