Same-sex marriage in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, same-sex marriage (Dutch: Huwelijk tussen personen van gelijk geslacht or commonly homohuwelijk) has been legal since 1 April 2001. The Netherlands was the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage.

As early as the mid-1980s, a group of gay rights activists, headed by Henk Krol – then editor-in-chief of the Gay Krant – asked the government to allow same sex couples to marry. Parliament decided in 1995 to create a special commission, which was to investigate the possibility of same-sex marriages. At that moment, the Christian Democrats (Christian Democratic Appeal) were not part of the ruling coalition for the first time since the introduction of full democracy. The special commission finished its work in 1997 and concluded that civil marriage should be extended to include same-sex couples. After the election of 1998, the government promised to tackle the issue. In September 2000, the final legislation draft was debated in the Dutch Parliament.

The marriage bill passed the House of Representatives by 109 votes to 33 on 12 September 2000.

The Senate approved the bill on 19 December 2000 by 49 to 26 votes. Only the Christian parties, which held 26 of the 75 seats at the time, voted against the bill. Although the Christian Democratic Appeal would form the next government, they did not indicate any intention to repeal the law.

The main article in the Act changed article 1:30 in the marriage law to read as follows:

The law came into effect on 1 April 2001, and on that day four same-sex couples were married by the Mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, who became a registrar specifically to officiate at the weddings. A few months earlier, Mayor Cohen had been junior Minister of Justice of the Netherlands and was responsible for putting the new marriage and adoption laws through parliament.

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Wikipedia