Huge strides have been made for marriage equality now that Austria has become the 16th European country to legalize gay marriage. While civil partnership has been legal since 2010, gay marriage has never been an option for the Austrian people.
"The distinction between marriage and civil partnership can no longer be maintained today without discriminating against same-sex couples,” said the Austrian Constitutional Court."
Despite a strong presence of the Roman Catholic Church and the right-wing Freedom Party, formed by former Nazis, lawmakers still ruled to allow couples of the same sex to marry after a complaint from two women who were refused to marry in Vienna. The ruling is important in LGBTQ history because despite the fact that Austria is currently amidst right-wing coalition negotiations between the current governing party, the People’s Party, and the Freedom Party, which both oppose same-sex marriage, the Constitutional Court still chose to vote in favor of legalizing same sex marriage.
The current conservative ruling party could have been speculated to compromise the potential for such a liberal ruling, yet other formerly Communist countries including Germany have set the precedent for legalizing same-sex marriage. Austria surprised the world with this ruling, because “Austria is the first European country to recognize marriage equality for same-gender couples as a fundamental right,” whereas other countries recognize marriage equality as merely a political right, according to lawyer Helmut Graupner.
Austria’s discriminatory past, including long-standing Anti-Antisemitism and Islamaphobia has left stains in the country’s history. In recent years, Austria has been moving on the right track as laws have been established to ensure that Holocaust denial and violent racism are illegal. Currently, every student in Austria is required to visit the Mauthausen concentration camp twice to be reminded of their country's actions in World War II. But, in September the Freedom Party made waves when 51 deputies appeared at court wearing edelweiss flowers on their lapels - the flower outlawed Nazis would wear in the 1930s. The anti-Semitic message that this action sent does little to reinforce the anti-discrimination laws that are in place.
Discrimination against various groups is not a foreign concept to Austrian history, but Tuesday’s ruling created steps that could suggest the end of a discriminatory era of minority groups in the nation.
Still, many countries in Europe do not recognize same-sex marriage, including Russia and Poland. Perhaps the influence of their neighbor Austria will show them that same-sex marriage is whole-heartedly accepted in today's world.
