The 2017 Act amends and extends the law in relation to the adoption of children and made conforming amendments to other legislation. Among other things, the Act, in conjunction with the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 (available here), enables adoption by same-sex couples. The Act, in particular, amends use of heterosexual phrases in legislation, introducing more neutral terminology for words such as “parent” and “relative” (Section 3).
Article 402 prohibits the interpretation or application of any norm in a manner that limits, restricts, excludes, or suppresses the equality of rights and obligations of the parties to a marriage, whether such marriage is consummated between two people of different sexes or the same sex.
A Belarusian citizen and a Lithuanian registered their same-sex marriage in Denmark. In the same year, the Belarusian citizen applied for a Residency Permit on grounds of Family Reunification in Lithuania. However, it was denied by the Migration Department because neither same-sex marriage nor same-sex partnership is legal in Lithuania. The District Court affirmed the Migration Department’s decision; however, upon appeal, the Supreme Administrative Court decided to refer the case to the Constitutional Court.
The Act provides for recognition of changes of gender, issuance of gender recognition certificates, and conforming amendments to other legislation, including the Adoption Act 2010. Any person of at least 18 years of age who is not married or in a civil partnership, inter alia (Section 9), may apply to the Minister for Social Protection for a gender recognition certificate (Section 8). Where a gender recognition certificate is issued to a person, that person’s gender shall from the date of that issue become for all purposes the ‘preferred’ gender and sex (Section 18).
A Northern Ireland bakery that refused to bake a cake iced with the message “Support Gay Marriage” on the basis of the owners’ religious beliefs, was found in violation of anti-discrimination laws by a county court. The county court found discrimination both on grounds of sexual orientation and on grounds of religious belief or political opinion.
The issue in this case was whether the fact that no provision was made for same-sex couples to marry denied those parties equal protection of the law and was thus unfairly discriminating against them because of their sexual orientation, contrary to the Constitution’s protection of sexual orientation. The common law and the Marriage Act 25 of 1961 defined marriage as between man and woman.
The 2015 Marriage Act enacted the Thirty-Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland into law, which legalized same-sex marriage.
The two accused persons were charged and convicted of having carnal knowledge against the order of nature –contrary to Section 153(a) of the Penal Code, which is understood to prohibit same-sex sexual relations. In the alternative, the two accused persons were charged with indecent practices between men contrary to Section 156 of the Penal Code. Both of the accused persons pleaded not guilty but were convicted of both charges and sentenced to the maximum penalty of 14 years of imprisonment including hard labor.
On May 14, 2013, the National Justice Council issued a resolution stating that competent authorities are not allowed to refuse (a) to celebrate same-sex civil marriages nor (b) to convert same-sex common-law marriages (stable union) into civil marriages. The National Justice Council is a public administrative body that aims to advance the work of the Brazilian judicial system.
The plaintiffs, two Irish women in a same-sex relationship, married in Canada and sought recognition of their marriage in Ireland or alternatively the right to marry in Ireland. The Registrar General had declined to make a declaration on the validity of marriages that occur outside the State, stating that this was a matter for the courts under Section 29 of the Family Law Act 1995 (2019 version available here). The respondent Revenue Commissioners rejected the plaintiffs’ claim to their allowances as a
