aprii 6. 2001 « ju s t out 25
I'lum iinew s
D utch T reat
Gay couples legally marry in the Netherlands
by R ex W ockner
I
P ollin ation
an xiety?
T h s d o c t o r s a r a IN*
WE P R O M O T E
I
Oren fo r th e Season
lé March.
PHOTO BY REX WOCKNER
t was probably the most important mo
ment in the history of the worldwide
struggle for gay equality.
Four gay couples were legally married
April 1 in the Netherlands under the exact
same laws heterosexuals use. It was a world first.
Several nations have registered partnership
laws under which gay couples can obtain up to
99 percent of the rights and obligations of
marriage. But only the Netherlands now lets
gays simply marry.
“All the other countries have marriages spe
cially made for gay people,” said Henk Krol,
publisher of De Gay Krant magazine and the
driving force behind the 16-year process that
led to legalized marriage for same-sex couples.
“What we have in the Netherlands is civil mar
riage open to everyone. That’s the big differ
ence. That is the news.”
Amid an international media frenzy, the
weddings took place at Amsterdam City Hall as
Ton Jansen and Louis Rogmans celebrate during
after their wedding
the law became effective at the stroke of mid
night. Mayor Job Cohen officiated.
As he finished his opening remarks at
11:58 p.m., the audience members in the City
Council chambers began syncopated clapping as
they waited for the rooms clock to click over to
midnight. When it did, cheers erupted.
The ceremonies themselves took about a
half-hour. Cohen stood where individuals
stand to address the City Council. The four
couples sat in the front row of the seats where
the councilors sit.
Cohen read the marriage vows once for
each couple, and they individually responded,
"Yes.” Each couple shook hands, kissed and
signed documents, which then were signed by
the mayor.
A reception followed in the City Council
foyer, and the couples departed in four
brightly colored Volkswagen Beetles for a
party at a gay club.
“The most important thing is that we love
each other like everyone loves each other and
gets married. There’s no difference,” grtxim
Peter Wittebrood-Lemke said. “The whole
world has to leam that love is between people
and not only between a man and a woman.”
Asked how marriage fits together with gay
men’s reputation for nonmonogamy, Witte
brood-Lemke said: “Real fidelity has nothing to
do with monogamy. Real fidelity is something
else, something in your soul, something that
attaches you to each other. Monogamy can he a
sort of contract if you chix»e it. But if you marry
you don’t have to chtxxse monogamy. You have
to chuxxse for fidelity.”
His partner, Frank WittebrtxxJ, added: “Maybe
you’ve been told that homosexuals are not
monogamous. I think we are more honest. A lot
of heterosexuals are like homosexuals, hut they do
it in hiding.”
Grtxnn Ton Jansen, 63, married his partner
of 36 years, Louis Rogmans, 72.
“Marriage gives you all the rights that other
married people have,” he said. “Marriage is the
most intimate bond two people can enter into.”
Former Labour Member of Parliament
Mieke van der Burg, who fought hard for the
marriage legislation, said the political process
was arduous.
“In the beginning, 1 did not believe it would
pass,” she said. “It was very diffi
cult in my own political party
and in the other parties.”
Krol had some advice for
activists in other nations working
toward gay marriage: “You have
to discuss it over and over again
with the politicians...until they
understand there’s no reason not
to allow it. People are against it
not because they think negative
ly about it but because they feel
negatively in their lower body.”
Krol added: “The thing that
finally got us over the hump was
when we did a survey of the
Dutch population proving that a
large majority was in favor of gay
marriage. Everyone in Parlia
ment wants to do what the
majority of the people want.
That made the difference.”
University of Utrecht pro
the reception
fessor Rob Tielman said it also
helped that “Dutch society is
the most secular one in the Western world.
This explains Dutch attitudes toward volun
tary euthanasia, recreational drugs, sexual self-
determination, the legal right to be nude in
certain public places, mandatory sex educa
tion in all schools, the lowest percentage
worldwide of abortions and unwanted preg
nancies, the constitutional equal treatment of
gays and lesbians, the recognition of gay and
lesbian parenthood, etc. The fact that same-
sex couples can marry now in the Netherlands
is not a miracle but the consequence of a long
history of respect for human rights based upon
the principle of the right of every human
being to give meaning and shape to his or her
own life as long as the rights of others to
human self-determination are respected.”
One law change remains— which is ex
pected to pass shortly— before same-sex mar
riages are identical to opposite-sex couplings.
It will grant lesbian couples who give birth to
babies automatic joint parental authority. At
present, they have to petition a court for that
authority.
It might take some time before gay spouses
will be able to adopt children from other
nations. Not because the Netherlands has a
problem with it but because the Third World
nations from which Dutch couples adopt chil
dren are presumably hostile to the idea. JH
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