>I'm glad you are finally catching up to the rest of the developed world.
What fraction of the developed world had gay marriage, at what time, such that this statement makes sense?
I mean, Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in, what, 2003?
What fraction of the developed world had gay marriage, at what time, such that this statement makes sense?
I mean, Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in, what, 2003?
2001 — Netherlands
2001 — Belgium
2005 — Spain, Canada
2006 — South Africa
2009 — Norway, Sweden
2010 — Portugal, Iceland, Argentina
2012 — Denmark
2013 — France, Brazil, Uruguay, New Zealand
2014 — England and Wales
2015 — Luxembourg, Ireland, United States of America
2017 — Finland (the law is voted and signed but not yet in effect)
> I mean, Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in, what, 2003?
It's a good point but not without issues to wit the possibility of discontinuation or invalidation (California, Australian Capital Territory) and the fact that subdivision-level generally lacks many (or even most) of the protections and advantages normally granted (not to mention commonly a complete loss of recognition and attendant rights on moving outside the sub-territory)
That wasn't necessarily the case; a bunch of Full-Faith-and-Credit-Clause cases were also being litigated before this decision. Though it would probably have ended up as more of a complex mess.
You're right that just listing the dates for same-sex marriage doesn't tell the whole picture, but adding civil partnerships and their details would necessarily expand the comment to something closer to a book.
[0] for instance in France civil unions are quite literally a marriage lite, open to all and very commonly used as a legally recognised engagement by heterosexual couples (>90% of civil unions are heterosexual)
It's an astounding feat to have accomplished such a vast cultural change in such a short amount of time. I've read recently that upwards of 25% of the entire US population has shifted its view on gay marriage in just ten years.
Coming from a European, I think that's a bit of unnecessary quibbling intended to justify condescending to the Americans. The United States started out as something like the European Union: a partial union of sovereign countries. As such, the appropriate comparison would be to ask: where's the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights declaring that all EU members must implement gay marriage, or else? Get with the times, you backwards-looking conservatives on the Old Continent!
And, to this day, the separate regions, which are admittedly larger than states, actually do behave somewhat like different countries. The differences become especially visible when you look at public policies and development indices: different states in the USA have various levels of honesty in government, civil rights, economic development, average education, etc. In fact, on a state-by-state basis, some US states are more highly developed than many/most European countries.
So: Netherlands, Belgium, Massachusetts.