From closet to altar: Same sex marriage around the world

In contrast, gays, bisexuals and transgenders were an essential part of the social fabric of many ancient cultures (including Indian, Middle-Eastern, and Chinese) for centuries. Interestingly, the people responsible for stirring up trouble between these peacefully co-existing heterosexuals and homosexuals across Asia, Africa and even South America were Christian missionaries and colonizers from Europe! They preached that homosexuality was a sin and legislated against it in the lands they ruled. In South America, for instance, the Spanish conquerors dealt with natives who practised homosexuality by executing or burning them, or setting killer dogs on them.

Bias against and fear of homosexuality was hammered in deep—even among those who did not convert to Christianity—and so it came to be enshrined in the Constitutions of many ex-colonies like India.

Today, many homosexuals are “out of the closet” in Europe, the US, and even developing countries—getting legally married to their same-sex partners and championing the cause of same-sex marriage around the world. According to the 2021 US Census, there were 1.2 million same-sex couple households in the United States. And according to the Pew Research Center, in Spain, where same-sex marriage has been legal since 2005, 3.4 percent of the 148,588 marriages registered in 2021 were same-sex – the highest share among the countries and territories for which data is available.

Although there is no doubt that popular culture, television and the internet have played a big role in helping gay people come out of the closet and head towards the altar in contemporary times, various types of same-sex unions have existed in different cultures— China, Mesopotamia, ancient Greece and Rome—for centuries. They have ranged from informal, unsanctioned, and temporary relationships to highly ritualized unions that included marriage. In 2400 BC, Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, two royal Egyptian servants, became the first same-sex couple in recorded history. In ancient Rome, the Child Emperor Elagabalus referred to his chariot driver, a blonde slave from Caria named Hierocles, as his husband. He also married an athlete named Zoticus in a lavish public ceremony in Rome amidst the rejoicings of the citizens. There are other records too of same-sex marriage dating back to the first century AD. A marriage between two men Pedro Díaz and Muño Vandilaz in the Galician municipality of Rairiz de Veiga in Spain was recorded on 16 April 1061. They were married by a priest at a small chapel. Historic documents about the church wedding were found at the Monastery of San Salvador de Celanova.

Historians variously trace the beginning of the modern movement in support of same-sex marriage to anywhere from around the 1980s to the 1990s. In the United States, same-sex marriage became an official request of the gay rights movement after the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1987.

In 1989, Denmark became the first country to legally recognize a relationship for same-sex couples, establishing registered partnerships, which gave those in same-sex relationships "most rights of married heterosexuals, but not the right to adopt or obtain joint custody of a child."

But it was not until the 1990s that the modern movement towards marital equality began to make headway anywhere, and only in 2000 did the Netherlands become the first jurisdiction in the world to sanction same-sex weddings. The Dutch, in fact, triggered a political and social shift that has since spread across large swathes of the globe.

On October 17, 2023, the Supreme Court of India stopped just short of giving the nod to legalizing same-sex marriages in India. Had it done so, India would have become the second country in Asia (after Taiwan) to have legalized these unions. Still, the court offered a glimmer of hope to the LGBTQ community. The judges ruled that transgender people can marry other transgender people — if one spouse identifies as a woman and one as a man—and expanded the definition of discrimination.

Scientific studies show that the financial, psychological, and physical well-being of gay people are enhanced by marriage, and that the children of same-sex parents benefit from being raised by married same-sex couples within a marital union that is recognized by law and supported by societal institutions.

In India, same-sex marriage would allow couples to open joint bank accounts, buy or rent property together, share financial assets, be recognized as a relative so they can sign papers and give permissions if the partner is in the hospital, access the spouse’s life insurance, and inherit assets of the partner who dies. Giving these rights to the LGBTQ community will help reduce discrimination, make the community stronger, and allow them to live with dignity.