Gay Dutch don't take advantage of gay marriage
Jan van Breda (left) and Thijs Timmermans pose after their wedding, on April 1, 2011 in Amsterdam. The Netherlands celebrated the 10th anniversary of the world's first legally binding gay marriage with another set of nuptials. (Evert Elzinga/Getty Images)
AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands — It's been 10 years since Ton Jansen and Louis Rogmans joined three other couples in Amsterdam City Hall to say “ja, ik wil,” triggering an international revolution for gay rights.
On April 1, 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to carry out legal same-sex weddings. Since then nine other nations have legalized gay marriages. Uruguay moved to be the next in early April when a bill legalizing gay marriage was introduced in parliament.
“Gay marriage is Holland's best export product because we have shown that it is possible,” said Vera Bergkamp, head of the Dutch gay rights organization, COC.
In the country that pioneered the movement toward same-sex marriage, however, gays haven't exactly been rushing to tie the knot.
Data from The Netherlands' national statistics agency showed 15,000 gay couples have married since 2001. That means just 20 percent of gay Dutch couples are married, compared to 80 percent of heterosexual couples, the agency says.
Bergkamp sees three main reasons for the lack of nuptial enthusiasm among gay couples: less pressure from family and friends, fewer gay couples marrying to have children than their straight counterparts, and a more individualist, less family-orientated mindset among many homosexuals.
“For heterosexuals, it's normal when you're in a steady relationship for more than a year, that a lot of people start asking, 'well when are you getting married?' With two women or two men you don't get that yet,” she explained. “It's only been 10 years, not 100 years.”
For couples who go for it, being able to marry can be moving both on a personal level and as a symbol of the gay community's integration into the mainstream of Dutch society.
“It was a huge step,” said Lin McDevitt-Pugh, who married her American-born wife, Martha, in Amsterdam in May 2001. “For me it was incredible … . I'd been to my brother's wedding and my sister's wedding and their spouses were welcomed into the family. Now finally I was able to have my family take my partner in. The moment we got married there was a switch, she was now one of us.”
Comments