Well, not more so than usual. On this day exactly, five years ago, mayor Job Cohen performed the first true gay marriages in the world; not registered partnerships or church marriages unrecognised by the state, but real honest marriages. With that the last remaining significant legal barrier to full acceptance of homosexuality was removed and gay people could finally enjoy all the rights straight couples had enjoyed
for centuries.
All of this may not make much difference with everyday acceptance, but even from a purely practical point of view, let alone a symbolic one, it was a huge step forward. As a married couple you do enjoy priviledges single people, in a longterm relationship or not, do not, for example in tax and inheritance law. This was already available for gay people through the earlier civil partnership, but that didn;t carry the huge symbolic weight marriage still has. So said some of the gay couples interviewed in the Amsterdam weekly this week that being married helped a lot in the acceptance of their family, as that makes it easier for their family to see their relationship as real and serious.
It’s not a subject I daily think about, but I have to say I am quite proud of my country for being the first to recognise gay marriage, though I’d wish it had done so earlier. It’s about the last true gesture of tolerance, we’ve had here, before the Long Night of Fortuyn, Balkenende, van Gogh, Wilders and Verdonk started.