In Europe, same-sex marriage has become increasingly accepted since the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise gay weddings in 2001.
Fourteen other countries in Europe so far have followed the Dutch lead, most of them are on the western side of the continent and are part of the European Union, where 23 out of 28 member states recognise some type of same-sex union.
Austria was the latest European country to legalise same-sex marriage following a Constitutional Court decision in 2017, which will come into effect in January 2019.
A further nine European nations include some type of civil union between same-sex couples in their laws.
Two countries, Armenia, which has a ban on gay marriage, and Estonia, have not legalised equal marriage but legally recognise same-sex ceremonies performed in other countries.
Some ten countries, including Romania, do not recognise same-sex unions at all, while an additional fourteen have a constitutional ban on equal marriage.
The countries where gay marriage is legal in Europe:
- The Netherlands (2001)
- Belgium (2003)
- Spain (2005)
- Norway (2009)
- Sweden (2009)
- Portugal (2010)
- Iceland (2010)
- Denmark (2012)
- France (2013)
- United Kingdom, except for Northern Ireland (2014)
- Republic of Ireland (2015)
- Malta (2017)
- Germany (2017)
- Finland (2017)
- Austria (2019)
European countries with some form of civil union:
- Andorra (2005)
- Czech Republic (2006)
- Slovenia (2006)
- Switzerland (2007)
- Hungary (2009)
- Croatia (2014)
- Greece (2015)
- Cyprus (2015)
- Italy (2016)
The nations where equal marriage is still illegal
- Albania
- Azerbaijan
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Kazakhstan Kazakhstan
- Republic of Macedonia
- Monaco
- Romania
- Russia
- Turkey
- Estonia
European countries with a constitutional ban on equal marriage:
- Bulgaria (1991)
- Lithuania (1992)
- Belarus (1994)
- Moldova (1994)
- Ukraine (1996)
- Poland (1997)
- Latvia (2006)
- Serbia (2006)
- Montenegro (2007)
- Hungary (2012)
- Croatia (2013)
- Slovakia (2014)
- Armenia (2015)
- Georgia (2018)
Russia's extreme antagonism towards anything related to LGBTQ equal rights has influenced the slavic speaking and Orthodox Christian worlds. In the USA, right-wing Republican ties to Putin's Russia, especially among some evangelicals, are similarly motivated by a common antipathy to the LGBTQ equal rights movement, marriage equality progress being the most visible place progress has been made. I now realize that Russia's hatred of the EU, and the EU's insistence of some basic human rights for all Europeans no matter what sexual preference, is part of Russia's successful behind the scenes effort to finance Brexit and national breakup movements such as the one that is happening in Catalonia. Russia is also funding anti-EU and LGBTQ rights parties in France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Greece, Hungary, and other EU member states. It all makes sense looking at that map.
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