No Gay Marriage in the Netherlands

In July, the Vatican called on Roman Catholics around the world to oppose the legalisation of marriages between same-sex couples. In response to the Vatican’s campaign, Dutch gay rights organisations have published manual on how to revoke the legal ban on same-sex marriage in your country.

From AFP:

“The 60-page step-by-step booklet, published in Dutch and English, gives a historic overview of the 16-year lobbying process that eventually led the Dutch government to allow gays and lesbians to tie the knot as of April 1, 2001.

It calls on gays all over the world to challenge discriminatory laws and fight for equal rights through the courts.

In a sense it is a how-to manual for gays abroad campaigning for the right to same-sex unions says Henk Krol, editor in chief of the Gaykrant gay weekly, who created the booklet together with gay rights organisation COC Netherlands [the civil rights group that organized the successful lobby.]...

The manual is [also] intended to help authorities abroad see how they can change legislation, [Amsterdam mayor Job] Cohen added.

The booklet will be sent to foreign gay organisations and will be available online through the Gaykrant and COC websites.

For gays seeking advice on the possibility of marriage in the Netherlands Krol offers some practical tips in the preface to the booklet.

‘A foreigner living with a Dutch man or woman can marry. Two foreigners living permanently in the Netherlands also have this possibility,’ he writes.

For Europeans living in the European Union it could be possible to claim access to the Dutch institution of civil marriage through the European courts, the text suggests....

The manual is called ‘No gay marriage in the Netherlands’.

Dutch gay rights organisations insist that gay marriage does not exist here because under Dutch law it is the same civil union as is entered into by heterosexual couples. There is no special arrangement for same sex unions.

According to the latest statistics, more than 4,300 same sex couples chose to tie the knot in a civil marriage by 2002.”

The text is not yet available online, though the manual is for sale here.