One hundred and five votes for marriage equality
Scotland says yes: by an overwhelming majority, Holyrood opened marriage to same-sex couples.
On 4 February 2014, there was a festive atmosphere outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. Inside, members were voting on the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill. The result was clear: one hundred and five yes votes against eighteen no, not a single abstention. Scotland thus became the seventeenth country in the world to open marriage to same-sex couples.
The road there was long. Sex between men had only been decriminalised in Scotland in 1980, much later than in England and Wales. Civil partnership had existed since the mid-2000s. But for many couples it was not enough. They saw it as second-class marriage.
Opposition came mainly from the two big churches. The Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church warned that the reform would change the core of marriage. The government therefore opted for an opt-in: religious communities may marry same-sex couples but do not have to. Others, such as the Quakers, had been campaigning for the change for years.
Health Secretary Alex Neil, who had introduced the bill, summed up the day in a simple sentence. Marriage was about love, and that was what this issue had always been about.
In March, the law received royal assent. In mid-December, the first couples were able to convert their civil partnership into a marriage, some only minutes after the law took effect. The first actual weddings followed at Hogmanay, as the Scots call New Year's Eve. Since then, thousands of couples have married.
Within the United Kingdom, only Northern Ireland was left out. There the hurdle fell only in 2020, and even then not through its own devolved assembly, but under pressure from Westminster.