Timeline of same-sex marriage


This page contains a timeline of significant events regarding same-sex marriage and legal recognition of same-sex couples worldwide. It begins with the history of same-sex unions during ancient times, which consisted of unions ranging from informal and temporary relationships to highly ritualized unions, and continues to modern-day state-recognized same-sex marriage. Events concerning same-sex marriages becoming legal in a country or in a country's state are listed in bold.

Ancient times (10000 BC – 100)

Various types of same-sex marriages have existed, ranging from informal, unsanctioned relationships to highly ritualized unions.
Cicero mentions the marriage of the son of Curio the Elder, but he does it in a metaphorical form to criticize his enemy Antonius. Cicero states thus that the younger Curio was "united in a stable and permanent marriage" to Antonius. Martial also mentions a number of same-sex marriages, but always in derisory terms against people whom he wants to mock.
Practices and rituals for same sex unions were more recognized in Mesopotamia than in ancient Egypt. In ancient Assyria, there was considered to be nothing wrong with homosexual love between men. The Almanac of Incantations contained prayers giving equal standing to the love of a man for both a woman and a man.
At least two of the Roman Emperors were in same-sex unions; and in fact, thirteen out of the first fourteen Roman Emperors held to be bisexual or exclusively homosexual. The first Roman emperor to have married a man was Nero, who is reported to have married two other men on different occasions. First with one of his freedmen, Pythagoras, to whom Nero took the role of the bride, and later as a groom Nero married a young boy, who resembled one of his concubines, named Sporus.
Adolescent emperor Elagabalus referred to his chariot driver, a blond 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.
These same-sex marriages continued until Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. A law in the Theodosian Code was issued in 342 AD by the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans. This law prohibited same-sex marriage in ancient Rome and ordered that those who were so married were to be executed.
In the Middle Ages, a same-sex marriage between the two men Pedro Díaz and Muño Vandilaz in the Galician municipality of Rairiz de Veiga in Spain occurred on 16 April 1061. They were married by a priest at a small chapel. The historic documents about the church wedding were found at Monastery of San Salvador de Celanova.
The Siwa Oasis in Egypt had an historical acceptance of male homosexuality and even rituals of same-sex marriage—traditions that Egyptian authorities have sought to repress, with increasing success, since the early 20th century. The German egyptologist George Steindorff explored the oasis in 1900 and reported that homosexual relations were common and often extended to a form of marriage.

1970s

1970

James Michael McConnell, librarian, and Richard John Baker, law student on the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota, applied to the Clerk of District Court, Gerald Nelson, for a marriage license. Nelson denied the license because both applicants were men.
McConnell re-applied in a different county and received a marriage license. Eventually, Assistant Chief Judge Gregory Anderson ruled that "The marriage is declared to be in all respects valid."
On a direct appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a one-sentence order stating, "The appeal is dismissed for want of a substantial federal question."

1982

1990

2000

, California.

2010

, Cristina Fernández, signs the bill legalizing same-sex marriage.

2020