BUCHAREST, Romania — All European Union countries must recognize same-sex marriage, at least in relation to immigration cases where one partner is a citizen of the bloc, its highest court ruled on Tuesday.
The verdict was an important victory for L.G.B.T. rights groups, which have long argued that same-sex spouses of European Union citizens should be afforded the same basic right to live and work across the bloc’s 28 countries as heterosexual spouses, regardless of individual countries’ stances on same-sex marriage.
It also highlighted growing tensions between the bloc’s core institutions and some of its newer, more socially conservative member states.
Six European Union countries — all of them former Eastern Bloc nations that joined the union in the 21st century — have yet to legalize same-sex marriages or civil unions. In a statement issued along with its verdict, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg said they remained free not to do so.
But, the court added, “They may not obstruct the freedom of residence of an E.U. citizen by refusing to grant his same-sex spouse, a national of a country that is not an E.U. member state, a derived right of residence in their territory.”
The decision came a day after the United States Supreme Court ruled, in another closely watched case, that a baker could refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.
As different as the two cases — and their results — were, the decisions had something important in common: The judges did not treat them as being about gay rights. The American case was decided on fairly narrow, procedural grounds and the baker’s religious beliefs, while the European court based its ruling on the free movement of people.
The case before the court involved a Romanian activist, Adrian Coman, and his American husband, Claibourn Robert Hamilton, who were married in Belgium in 2010. Read more via New York Times