Same-Sex Marriage in the Netherlands (2001): A World First

The Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage when a new law took effect on 1 April 2001. Just after midnight, the mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, married four couples at the city hall, an event reported around the world. The Dutch law gave same-sex couples the same civil marriage as opposite-sex couples and opened the way for similar reforms in many other countries.

Background: a gradual path to equality

The Netherlands had a long record of relatively liberal laws on sexuality. Sex between men was decriminalised in 1811, when the country was under French rule and adopted the Napoleonic penal code. The COC, one of the world’s oldest surviving gay rights organisations, was founded in Amsterdam in 1946, and in 1987 the city unveiled the Homomonument, a memorial to gay men and lesbians persecuted for their sexuality.

From the 1980s activists began to argue for legal recognition of same-sex relationships. Some couples brought test cases in the courts, and the gay magazine editor Henk Krol and the lawyer and politician Boris Dittrich were prominent voices for marriage equality. Parliament first responded with registered partnerships, which came into force on 1 January 1998 and were open to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

The marriage law

Campaigners argued that a separate institution left same-sex couples as second-class citizens. In 1997 a government commission led by the legal scholar Kortmann examined the question, and a majority of its members recommended opening civil marriage to same-sex couples.

The decisive change was political. The “purple” coalition of Prime Minister Wim Kok, formed by the Labour Party, the liberal VVD and the social-liberal D66, was the first Dutch government in decades without the Christian Democrats. Its programme included opening marriage. The state secretary for justice, Job Cohen, prepared the bill, which passed the House of Representatives by a large majority in September 2000 and the Senate on 19 December 2000. Christian parties opposed it.

The law amended the Dutch Civil Code so that marriage could be contracted by two persons of different or the same sex. A separate act allowed same-sex couples to adopt children within the Netherlands. Both laws took effect on 1 April 2001.

The first weddings

Job Cohen had become mayor of Amsterdam in January 2001. At midnight on 1 April he married four couples, three male and one female, at Amsterdam City Hall in a ceremony broadcast on television and covered by journalists from many countries. Other weddings followed across the country in the days and months that followed.

Some differences remained at first. Same-sex married couples could not initially adopt children from abroad, and the automatic legal parenthood of a mother’s spouse applied only to husbands. These gaps were closed by later reforms, including a 2014 law on parenthood for female couples.

Debate and opposition

The reform was not without critics. The Christian Democratic Appeal and smaller Protestant parties argued that marriage was by nature a union of a man and a woman, and some warned that other countries would refuse to recognise Dutch same-sex marriages. The government acknowledged that recognition abroad could not be guaranteed, and for some years Dutch couples found that their marriages had no legal effect in many other states.

A practical issue was the position of civil registrars who objected on religious grounds to performing same-sex weddings. For several years some municipalities allowed such officials to opt out, provided another registrar was available. A law adopted in 2014 ended this practice, requiring all registrars to marry any couple entitled to wed.

Public opinion in the Netherlands was broadly supportive at the time, and support grew further in the years after 2001. Surveys commonly found clear majorities in favour, making the Netherlands one of the most accepting countries in the world on the issue.

Legacy

The Dutch law was soon followed elsewhere. Belgium opened marriage to same-sex couples in 2003, and Spain and Canada did so in 2005. In the United States, same-sex marriage became legal nationwide with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015. By the 2020s more than 30 countries had legalised same-sex marriage.

The reform was the latest step in a long international change in attitudes, which also included the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales by the Sexual Offences Act 1967 and the rise of gay liberation after the Stonewall riots. In the Netherlands, 1 April 2001 is now remembered as a milestone of the country’s reputation for social tolerance.

Timeline

• 1811: Sex between men is decriminalised under French rule.
• 1946: The COC gay rights organisation is founded in Amsterdam.
• 1998, 1 January: Registered partnerships come into force.
• 2000, September: The House of Representatives passes the bill opening marriage.
• 2000, 19 December: The Senate approves the bill.
• 2001, 1 April: The law takes effect; Job Cohen performs the first same-sex weddings in Amsterdam.
• 2003: Belgium becomes the second country to allow same-sex marriage.

Why it matters

By opening civil marriage to same-sex couples, the Netherlands turned a long-discussed idea into law for the first time anywhere. Its example showed that marriage equality could be achieved through ordinary legislation and encouraged reformers around the world.