Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same legal sex. As of 2025,[update] marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 38 countries, with a total population of 1.5 billion people (20% of the world's population). The most recent jurisdiction to legalize same-sex marriage is Thailand.
Same-sex marriage is legally recognized in a large majority of the world's developed countries; notable exceptions are Italy, Japan, South Korea and the Czech Republic. Adoption rights are not necessarily covered, though most states with same-sex marriage allow those couples to jointly adopt as other married couples can. Some countries, such as Nigeria and Russia, restrict advocacy for same-sex marriage. A few of these are among the 35 countries (as of 2023) that constitutionally define marriage to prevent marriage between couples of the same sex, with most of those provisions enacted in recent decades as a preventative measure. Other countries have constitutionally mandated Islamic law, which is generally interpreted as prohibiting marriage between same-sex couples. In six of the former and most of the latter, homosexuality itself is criminalized. (Full article...)
Anna Borysivna Sharyhina (born c.1978) is a Ukrainian feminist and LGBT activist. She is a cofounder of the Sphere Women's Association, a lesbian feminist organisation in Kharkiv, and of the NGO Kyiv Pride, the organizing committee of the Pride Parade in Kyiv.
... that Anita Bryant's participation in Save Our Children, a coalition working to overturn gay rights ordinances in Miami and other cities in 1977 and 1978, destroyed her career?
... that the first same-sex kiss on an American soap opera was between fictional characters Lena Kundera and Bianca Montgomery in 2003, who were also American soap opera's first lesbian couple?