Talk:Same-sex marriage

Spelling mistake

the third bold description has a mis-spelled word. ‘Marriage’ not ‘mariage.’ 2600:4040:76F6:2100:E121:77AD:4627:2E3D (talk) 18:15, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, someone fixed that a little after your comment. Johnuniq (talk) 03:44, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

ECJ Ruling

I'm not enough of a legal expert but the ECJ has just ruled that "Refusing to recognize a marriage between two Union citizens, is contrary to EU law because it infringes [the] freedom and the right to respect for private and family life". [1] Does that mean EU states without marriage equality need to be shaded in the 'valid if performed abroad' purple that we have Israel in? Akerbeltz (talk) 10:34, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

WP:CRYSTAL WP:NOR No, the ECJ ruling does not automatically legalize anything in member states. Each country still decides whether to comply with the ruling. The ECJ issued a similar ruling in June 2018, and, as expected, nothing changed in practice. I understand that some users are tempted to engage in crystal-balling and original research, which only makes the map unnecessarily complicated. This needs to stop. Let’s keep the map clear and practical. If a member state does not recognize same-sex marriages in practice, then there is no reason to introduce overly theoretical or speculative details that add confusion or unnecessary complexity to the map. Cyanmax (talk) 11:37, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 December 2025

The 'Timeline' section of this article begins:

'The summary table below lists in chronological order the sovereign states (the United Nations member states and Taiwan) that have legalized same-sex marriage. As of 2025, 38 states have legalized in some capacity.'

However, the timeline table isn't a list of sovereign states; it includes various subnational units – counties, cities, states in federations et cetera. Therefore, change the above quoted section to reflect the actual content of the table:

'The summary table below lists in chronological order the jurisdictions that have legalized same-sex marriage.' LLage (talk) 13:10, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Done. Jdcooper (talk) 15:32, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Cheers LLage (talk) 15:44, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

 Done by Jdcooper. Toast1454_TC 15:56, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Polling Updates

The polling section lists 2017 as the most recent date for data from several countries polled by the Americas Barometer, but they had polling done in 2023. Shouldn’t this be updated with new data? ~2025-42893-22 (talk) 15:31, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

Feel free to update the table if you found more recent polls thomasmazzotta 10:52, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

"Bisexual marriage" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Bisexual marriage has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 December 28 § Bisexual marriage until a consensus is reached. MEN KISSING (she/they) T - C - Email me! 08:35, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

Developed countries not recognising same-sex marriage

In one of the opening paragraphs in the article, Poland is included in the list of developed countries that don't recognise same-sex marriage, while Slovakia is omitted. According to the IMF, Poland is not considered a developed country yet, while Slovakia has been considered developed for quite some time now. Slovakia should therefore be listed as a developed country not recognising same-sex marriage, not Poland. ~2026-24355-0 (talk) 10:39, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Per your request, I have removed Poland. Whoever added it likely didn't realize that it isn't classified as a fully developed country. If we include Slovakia, we would also have to include countries like Latvia, Lithuania, Monaco and others, which lack the global scale of Italy or Japan. Including those countries would dilute the focus of the list, which currently emphasizes major economic powers. Maintaining a selection of high-impact countries is preferable. Cyanmax (talk) 12:50, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

No, we wouldn't "have" to: Monaco isn't a notable country.

I added Poland based on the figures I found when I looked up what "developed country" meant, and decided on HDI > 0.9. Whose definition are we following? If we're going by HDI, then for 2023 figures Slovenia (not Slovakia) is more "developed" than Japan. Poland also makes the cut, closely between Greece and Estonia, both of which have SSM. I omitted the UAE because it's hardly news that SSM isn't legal in Arab countries. — kwami (talk) 21:39, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure why we need to give "notable exceptions" at all. There are no real criteria of inclusion for what constitutes a notable exception, given that there are many exceptions in different continents with different levels of development. If we could find a secondary source covering notable exceptions, that could work, otherwise it's kind of original research. Jdcooper (talk) 21:45, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

If we go by WESP, that's a binary category, not a sliding scale, and we don't need to decide on notability. The WESP developed countries without SSM are Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia. But that's rather a long list. Plus it ignores the many Latin countries that aren't considered developed. It is very much a Western thing, however, and is only very slowly expanding outside the Western world; that is certainly worth noting IMO. — kwami (talk) 21:53, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Yep, I agree. I think the current article text which mentions this phenomenon is clear enough without a list of exceptions, exhaustive or otherwise. Jdcooper (talk) 22:55, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Why did you put "developed" in quotation marks when mentioning Slovenia being more developed than Japan as if that was something controversial or suprising? When you look at the overall living standards, infractructure, quality of housing etc, it's quite evident that Slovenia is more developed than Japan. Nevertheless, HDI is not the best way to measure a country's level of development, that's why I mentioned the IMF in my original comment, as their criteria for what constitues a developed country are more detailed. ~2026-24355-0 (talk) 22:35, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Quotation marks are used for citations and referring to words as words. As you noted, it's not exactly clear what counts as 'developed'. — kwami (talk) 23:28, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Innacuracy in second map of countries where same-sex marriage is banned by constitution

Israel is falsely marked dark red as a country where same-sex marriage is banned by constitutionally mandated religious law. While same-sex marriage isn't legal in Israel yet, it is not banned by religious constitution(Israel doesn't have a religious constitution). In addition, same-sex marriages performed abroad are legally recognized, and there are also civil unions. ~2026-28729-8 (talk) 10:34, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Is it not in the constitution that marriages are only performed by recognized religious authorities? Or is that just a law that politically is not easy to repeal? — kwami (talk) 01:43, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

It seems[2] that the Basic Law functions as Israel's constitution, and under Basic Law marriage is up to the recognized religious authorities. The legislature could change that, but then legislatures can change more formal constitutions in other countries, so IMO that's not a significant difference. But it is a bit of a grey area. — kwami (talk) 02:03, 30 January 2026 (UTC)