Aruba MP seeks progress on same-sex marriage
Plus: Violence shuts down Tblisi Pride, and the world's first gay President takes office
The leader of an opposition party in the Parliament of Aruba has written to the Netherlands government seeking an update on progress for bringing same-sex marriage to the Dutch Caribbean islands Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten.
The three islands are self-governing territories within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, but the Netherlands/Kingdom government has certain responsibilities when it comes to upholding fundamental rights there. None of the self-governing territories currently allow same-sex marriage, though three other, smaller Dutch islands in the Caribbean that are considered part of the Netherlands proper had same-sex marriage law extended to them in 2010 by the Netherlands government (Bonaire, Saba, and Sint Eustatius). Aruba has allowed a limited civil union since 2016.
Last year, a couple won the right to same-sex marriage in the common court for Aruba and Curacao, but both islands governments have appealed to the Court of Cassation, and we haven’t had an update since. The Netherlands government has occasionally called for the three islands to pass their own same-sex marriage laws.
Latvia’s new President Edgars Rinkevics was officially sworn in on Saturday, becoming the first openly gay head of state in the EU. As I wrote for the LA Blade when he was elected, he is one of only two openly gay heads of state of any modern county – the other being Paolo Rondelli, one of the two co-princes of San Marino, who shared the title for six months in 2022. Rinkevics made oblique references to his support for a civil union law during his inaugural address, but the current conservative government is unlikely to advance it. Latvian courts have allowed couples to register civil unions without any legislative framework since last year, however.
The Mexican state of Queretaro is expected to take up to a year to pass a law on legal gender recognition. Mexico’s Supreme Court has ruled that gender recognition is a constitutional right, but the individual states have taken their time passing legislation to facilitate it, just like with same-sex marriage and adoption. So far, 21 of the 32 states have passed a legal gender recognition law.
Religious groups in Malawi are calling for a morning of protests against the legalization of homosexuality and same-sex marriage on Thursday, July 13. There is currently a case before the courts seeking to strike down the country’s sodomy law, which dates from the British colonial era but appears to enjoy popular support. In the last decade, successive governments had pledged not to enforce the law while it considered repealing it, but that appears to have gone by the wayside after a lower court ordered police to continue to enforce the law as written.
Violent anti-LGBT protesters on Saturday forced the shutdown of Tblisi Pride in Georgia (in southeastern Europe). Many activists, and even the President of Georgia, have accused the police of colluding with the protesters to disrupt the event. It’s just the latest in anti-LGBT and anti-Pride protests in the country, which is struggling to put on a progressive face as it applies for European Union membership. The nation’s public defender has called on the Interior Ministry to swiftly investigate the violence.
Meanwhile, in US Georgia, a state legislator is attempting to introduce a “religious freedom” law that some are interpreting as a license to discriminate against LGBT people and others. Georgia activists are asking legislators to instead propose a comprehensive anti-discrimination bill, as it is one of only three US states that has no statewide civil rights law.
And in the US Congress, a House version of the Senate bill to allow same-sex couples to amend their tax returns and remove gendered language from the tax code has been introduced, but it only has 13 sponsors at this point, all Democrats.
The Navajo Nation Council has advanced a bill to legalize same-sex marriage through to committee study. The Navajo Nation is the largest Native American Tribal jurisdiction in the US by population, and one of several where same-sex marriage remains illegal.
The Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church has announced it will stop facilitating all civil marriages in the country, at least temporarily, in protest against the recently passed law allowing same-sex marriage. The Church is using the same tired tropes churches have used around the world, accusing the government of forcing or planning to force the Church to marry same-sex couples against its creed, despite the fact that this has never happened in any of the 35 countries that have legalized same-sex marriage over the past 22 years.
Ghana’s opposition leader has pledged to “review” the Anti-Homosexuality Bill if he’s elected in December 2024. It’s not clear what that review would entail (and indeed, the bill hasn’t even passed yet).
One government minister in Namibia has come out strongly against a private member’s bill from his own party that seeks to overturn the Supreme Court’s recent decision on recognizing foreign same-sex marriages for immigration purposes, while several other government members are simply refusing to comment. The upshot of this is that it seems that the fight against equal marriage recognition may be losing momentum.