Long engagements give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which is never advisable.
- Oscar Wilde

Ever since January 1998, Dutch law has recognised a new form of partnership, called a Registered Partnership. Registration provides couples (gay, straight or otherwise) with virtually all the same rights, privileges and responsibilities afforded married couples, ranging from issues such as pension, taxes and inheritance, to hospital/medical next-of-kin issues and adoption of Dutch children.

Getting registered proved somewhat more difficult than we had expected, as I was required to submit all sorts of Canadian documents. With my nephew Tyler’s help, however, I managed to get all the necessary documents from the Provincial and Federal governments, stamped by External Affairs Canada, the Dutch Embassy in Ottawa and the Dutch External Affairs in The Hague. Four months after we set the wheels in motion, we finally got registered at the municipal hall, on April 29th (1998).

Registration, however, was an interim solution. One of the problems with this 'new' form of partnership, is that there is no international legal standard set of rights, privileges and responsibilities associated with it, as there is for the form of partnership known as 'marriage'. Even though marriage in one country might not be exactly the same as marriage in another, every country's legal system knows what marriage is, and associates rights, privileges and responsibilities with it. Extending marriage so as not to exclude same-sex couples, therefore, can be relatively straight-forward (pardon the pun), whereas introducing a new form of relationship would be opening a legal can of worms, undoubtedly requiring all sorts of committees and years of work to reach some semblance of international agreement.

The Upper and Lower chambers of the Dutch Parliament have since passed legislation, whereby the definition of marriage in the constitution and in dictionaries is no longer exclusive to “one man and one woman,” but extended so as to include same-sex couples. This legislation became law in April 2001.

To keep our appointment-books simple, Hans and I were married on April 20th, 2001, to coincide with our 15th anniversary.

In doing so, I am both the first Canadian and the first British citizen in the world to legally marry his same-sex partner.

In 2001, I wrote: This change in the law will hopefully have broader implications for international law, such as immigration and citizenship rights. Of course, I'm the last who could be accused of being naïve, but I do hold out hope for Canada's eventual (legal) reaction to these laws. If Canada, for example, refuses to acknowledge some of the marriages performed in The Netherlands (thereby breaking with precedent) on the basis of sexual orientation, could this be argued in the Supreme Court as discrimination? On the other hand, if Canada accepts all Dutch marriages, how can she possible refuse her own citizens the right to (same-sex) marriage? I realise I'm speaking 'long-term' here, in my hopes for changes in the laws of other countries, but even if it does take decades, one has to start somewhere. We now have the opportunity to show our solidarity with gay couples in other countries, where they aren't yet as fortunate.

In July, 2005, Canada legalised same-sex marriage on a federal level after it had been legalised in several provinces and the Supreme Court ruled Parliament had to change the law to be consistent with the Charter of Rights. There were some inconsistencies in the way Canada Immigration implemented its rules - most notably the fact that our marriage in The Netherlands was not recognised as a basis for immigration sponsorship as was the case for opposite-sex marriage - however I wrote to the Hon. Hedy Fry, Member of Parliament for Vancouver-Centre,who raised the issue in parliament. As a result, the immigration rules were eventually ammended and our marriage in The Netherlands was officially recognised as marriage in Canada.

There's still a lot of work to do, however. We still need to see a real paradigm-shift among politicians, lawmakers and the general population. Marriage of gays is still often referred to as gay-marriage or same-sex marriage, whereas in reality there is only one kind of marriage before the law.

A member of the Dutch Senate said to me, “Registered Partnership has basically all the same rights as marriage in The Netherlands, so gays who wish to have their Registered Partnership commuted into marriage, are just doing it for the party.” The underlying argument is that we gays should have been satisfied with Registered Partnership, and extending marriage was not necessary - frivolous, in fact. If marriage were only open to whites, and people of other skin-colours were limited to Registered Partnership, would this argument sound reasonable? Or if the two are in fact the same, why not remove marriage from the law books? Obviously, they are not the same - at least sociologically speaking - for otherwise it wouldn't have taken the politicians and law-makers so long open marriage. Honestly, I get so tired of people who can't be slightly more objective in their arguments.

All that said, our marriage has been in the heart from the beginning, and not in a piece of paper. April 20th, 1986, remains our day. Still, the importance of the new law - symbolically and historically - should not be underestimated.