A world first at the ballot box

On 5 June 2005, Swiss voters approved the federal law on registered partnership for same-sex couples with 58 per cent of the vote. The yes came after a hard-fought campaign: the Evangelical People's Party and the Federal Democratic Union had launched a referendum against the law passed by parliament. The cantons of Jura, Valais, Ticino, Appenzell Innerrhoden, Uri, Schwyz and Thurgau rejected the bill, but the majority of the Swiss population prevailed. Switzerland thus became the first country in the world to legitimise the legal recognition of same-sex couples by popular vote. The law came into force on 1 January 2007 and put registered partners on an equal footing with married couples in key areas: inheritance law, tax law and social insurance, including the old-age pension AHV. Adoption and reproductive medicine, however, remained excluded.

That minority rights had to be put to a vote at all drew criticism from parts of the queer community. Even then, voices from legal scholarship and civil society pointed out that the fundamental rights of a minority should not depend on a popular majority. This debate did not remain abstract: in Switzerland it can still be shown today that direct democracy, on questions affecting minorities, mostly turns out to the disadvantage of the group concerned. Federal Councillor and Justice Minister Christoph Blocher stressed before the vote that people were not voting on homosexuality but on legal security. That helped to make the campaign more factual. Ten years after the petition "Equal rights for same-sex love", the community and its organisations had reached an important milestone. In 2022, the partnership law was replaced by "marriage for all", which was also approved by popular vote.