Same Sex Marriage: The 15 Pioneers Quiz

Answer: Netherlands

As with many other progressive laws, widening its citizens' rights and liberties, The Netherlands was the first country in the entire world to introduce full same-sex marriage on the 1st of April 2001.

Answer: Belgium

Belgium, The Netherlands' southern neighbour, was the second "pioneer" in passing a same sex marriage law only two years after, on the 1st of June 2003.

Answer: Spain

On the 3rd of July 2005, the Spanish "Cortes" (Parliament) said "si" to equal marriage rights for everyone almost exactly two years after Belgium.

Answer: Canada

The province of Québec was the first to offer to gays and lesbians equal treatment regarding marriage laws in March 2004. Other provinces follwed it afterwards like British Columbia, Saskatchewan, etc...The Parliament in Ottawa, after a voting in July 2005 decided to extend these rights federally to the whole of Canadian territory. Canada was then, the first country in the Americas respecting equal rights on this matter.

Answer: South Africa

The court ruled on 1 December 2005 that the existing marriage laws violated the equality clause of the Bill of Rights because they discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation. The court gave Parliament one year to rectify the inequality since it was clearly against the ultraliberal and antidiscrimination constitution of the country. South Africa was, then, the first country in the Southern Hemisphere to have pass such a law and the first African one.

Its nickname "The Rainbow Nation" became even more meaningful from that day!

Answer: Norway

Same-sex marriage became legal in Norway on the 1st of January 2009 when a gender neutral marriage bill was enacted after being passed by the Norwegian legislature in June 2008. Norway became the first Scandinavian country to pass such a law.

Answer: Sweden

Neighbouring Sweden was the next pioneering country. Same-sex marriage became legal on 1st of May 2009, following the adoption of a new, gender-neutral law on marriage by the Swedish parliament on 1 April 2009.

Answer: Portugal

On 1 February 2006, Teresa Pires and Helena Paixão, were not allowed to get legally married, but they promised to challenge the ban in court, saying that it discriminated against them on the basis of sexual orientation, while this type of discrimination was banned by the 1976 constitution and, moreover, discrimination based on sexual orientation had been made illegal in 2004.

Answer: Iceland

The parliament of the country, the "Althing", passed the law without any vote against it. On 10th of May 2009, the new government was announced, with Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir staying on as Prime Minister.

Answer: Argentina

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner signed the law making Argentina the first Latin American country to have legal same sex marriage. the first couple officially married on the 30th of July 2010. In the first year almost 10,000 gay Argentinian followed.

Answer: Denmark

"Pioneering" country number 11 introduced full same sex marriage on 15 June 2012. The bill for legalization, introduced by the government was approved by the "Folketing" (Parliament) on the 7th of June 2012 and received Royal Assent on the 12th of June 2012. Surprisingly, given that Denmark was the very first country to introducing same sex legal civil unions (in 1989) the legislation only covers metropolitan Denmark and does not extend to Greenland or the Faroe Islands.

Answer: Brazil

The Justice's National Council of Brazil issued a ruling requiring all civil registers of the country to perform same-sex marriages by a 14 votes in favour and only 1 vote against, thus legalizing same-sex marriage in the entire country. Brazil became, then, the third country in the Southern Hemisphere and the third in the Americas to be a "pioneer" country, giving its citizens more freedom and equal rights.

Answer: France

Surprisingly (again),"La France", the "cradle of liberty", stunned the entire world with the images of hundreds of thousands of outraged and screaming anti-gay marriage demonstrators venting their anger publicly in the streets of the main cities across the country, including Paris, when "L'Assemblée Nationale" passed the law. Nevertheless, France was the first major power in the world, politically, internationally and economically speaking, to pass this law.

France was, it should be added, the first country to decriminalize homosexual acts between consenting adults - in 1791, at the time of the Revolution.

Answer: Uruguay

Uruguay had been the first Latin American country to pass the same sex "civil union act" in 2008. It was also the first country in the world to legalize the free use, free production and free sale of marijuana (available from pharmacies if you are a Uruguayan citizen or resident). Uruguay, unlike Argentina, has also an abortion law and euthanasia law making this little "freedom champion of the South" one of the most advanced and liberal countries in the whole entire world.

Answer: New Zealand

2013 was "THE" year for same sex freedom marriages. (Brazil, France, Uruguay and New Zealand).It was also "THE" year for the Southern Hemisphere because three of the countries are under the Southern Cross. There was a bit of a "surprise"(ANOTHER one!) though, because tradionally very liberal "Kiwis" took "so long" to get to this stage.

But it is still among the 15 countries which made History books allowing its citizens more freedom and more equality!