Long Road to Victory, Part V

Part 5: The Rest of the World

For today's episode of Sweptback Saturday, here's one last (perhaps) installment of marriage equality cartoons. The U.S. of A. hasn't been the only country dealing with the issue, and it has by no means been the first. Our neighbor to the north legalized same-sex marriage in 2003:

Queen Consort Sofia, wife of then King Juan Carlos, had come out publicly against marriage rights for gay couples; but in 2005, Spain decided to ignore both her and the Vatican:

In 2006, Mexico City passed a law recognizing same-sex civil unions. The city's legislative assembly voted 39-20 in favor of full marriage equality three years later, even though polling of the electorate showed only half of the city's population approved. Just two weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court's Obergefell decision, the Mexico Supreme Court ruled that state bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional.

Queen Elizabeth signed legislation legalizing same-sex marriage in the Commonwealth of Nations in 2013. The legislation does not require member states, territories and dependencies to recognize same-sex marriage, and several do not. At this point, the only member nations with full marriage equality besides Canada and Great Britain are New Zealand, South Africa, and (not mentioned in this cartoon,) Pitcairn Island.

As the cartoon notes, many Commonwealth nations are holding out against marriage equality. (I should not have included "United Kingdom" in the cartoon, since Northern Ireland recognizes same-sex marriages, but unlike its southern counterpart, does not grant them.) In Russia, the Islamic world, and most of Africa where basic human rights of LGBT citizens are non-existent, marriage equality is not even on the horizon.

One can only hope that there will be a day in the not too distant future when I can add a "Long Road to Victory, Part VI" to this series.