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 It’s been a busy week for gay and lesbian couples in California and Norway, as many finally indulge in wedded bliss. Adam Bub reports.
From the amount of rice being thrown and marriage licenses being issued, you’d be forgiven for thinking that California is the new Vegas.
On Monday, June 16, at 5pm, California’s same-sex marriage laws came into effect, making it the second US state after Massachusetts to introduce gay marriage, and the first to allow non-residents to marry within the state.
Yes – it takes just a single day, but it has taken years to get there.
Amidst the thousands of couples that rushed to get their marriage licence last week was George Takei, best known for his role as Mr Sulu in the original Star Trek series. He plans to marry his partner of 21 years, Brad Altman, in a lavish ceremony in September. Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and actress Portia de Rossi have also announced that they will take the plunge together in the coming months.
After five decades together, San Francisco residents Del Martin, 87, and Phyllis Lyon, 84, became the first couple to legally wed in California last week. The couple repeated their 2004 marriage, which was one of 4,036 gay marriages conducted by City Hall that were then ruled to be invalid. San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom presided over Martin and Lyons’ newest wedding. He said that 1,670 couples registered for marriage licenses in San Francisco alone.
“There is just a great sense of pride here,” Mayor Newsom told TIME. “But there is a great deal of trepidation, concern and worry, too.” Newsom is referring to the November ballot, which could see the Supreme Court ruling overturned.
But Peter Furness of Australian Marriage Equality believes that the ballot will go through unhinged, citing the recent opinion polls that indicated more Californians support marriage or civil unions than no legal recognition at all.
“People see that the sky is not falling in; these people deserve respect and dignity. Every place where marriage is brought in, very quickly support has gone up,” Furness told SX. “Even the Republican governor [Arnold Schwarzenegger] is committed to campaigning against such a constitutional amendment.”
Just last week, Norway delivered a bundle of rights that will trump California’s reforms. From January 2009, Norwegian gay couples will be able to marry, adopt and undergo artificial insemination to have children. While Norway became the second country after Denmark to allow civil unions, the new laws will replace civil unions with marriage, whilst California will offer both marriage and partnership registries (the latter of which had been available since 1999, and resembles the schemes in Tasmania, the ACT, and later this year, Victoria)
Further afield, other jurisdictions are showing signs of change, such as Sweden, whose parliament is tipped to pass same-sex marriage. The US state of Connecticut stands on the verge of its own historic court ruling that could echo the one in California.
Furness believes that the progress of other countries only further embarrass Australia on the world scale. “I suspect a growing attitude in Australia that this is not just about marriage, because a lot of people can’t envisage that they want to marry,” he said. “But many find marriage a compelling topic.”
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