ABSTRACT
Since Denmark led the way in 1989, the idea of legalising same-sex unions or marriage has moved from the realm of the unthinkable to the terrain of the possible, if not yet the inevitable. It has become a touchstone issue concerning the state of our culture. Since the 1980s, controversy has raged in the USA about same-sex marriage and related issues over parenting, reflecting a deep national fissure and the continuation of the culture wars that have been burning since the 1970s.1 Other jurisdictions from Canada to Argentina, South Africa and most of Western Europe have more or less willingly implemented domesticpartnership arrangements, registered civil unions and, in a number of cases, marriage, though not without fierce local oppositions.2 Each country has taken its own path, reflecting its own cultural bias and political balance.3
