Legislation that came into force a decade ago allowing same-sex couples in Scotland to marry is among Holyrood’s top five achievements, former first minister Nicola Sturgeon has said.
While she led Scotland at the time the law was introduced, Ms Sturgeon said she does “not claim it as a personal achievement” but instead regards it as a “big part of this Parliament’s legacy”.
Speaking to the PA news agency 10 years after the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act came into effect, Ms Sturgeon said: “It’s something I look back and take pride in.”
The legislation was passed by 105 votes to 18 in February 2014, with Ms Sturgeon saying she believed at the time that was “the biggest parliamentary majority there had been of all the countries that had introduced equal marriage”.
The former first minister said: “It sent a powerful signal and I put it in the top five achievements of the lifetime of the Scottish Parliament.”
The law came into force on December 16 2014, with same-sex couples in a civil partnership then able to complete the necessary paperwork to convert that into a marriage.
Wedding ceremonies were held from December 31 that year – with Ms Sturgeon and Scottish Green co-leader Patrick Harvie even acting as witnesses for one couple that day.
At the time the law was introduced, religious leaders viewed it as an assault on traditional marriage, claiming the change had been “steam-rollered through” Holyrood.
By the end of September 2024, there had been 10,138 same-sex marriages in Scotland – with Registrar General Alison Byrne, also the chief executive of National Records of Scotland, sending her congratulations to all the couples “who are shortly to celebrate their 10th anniversaries having been among the first to marry under the new law”.
It was Ms Sturgeon herself who announced the Scottish Government planned to make the change to the law to allow same-sex couples to marry, with the then deputy first minister saying back in 2012 the government was “committed to a Scotland that is fair and equal”.
She accepted the legislation had been “controversial” at the time, adding politicians had been expecting a “pretty rancorous, divisive debate” on the issue.
However she said while not all MSPs backed the law – with some SNP MSPs amongst those who voted against it – it had been “quite a civilised debate”.
The debate “didn’t have the rancour and to be blunt the thinly veiled prejudice” there had been when Holyrood in 2000 repealed the Section 28 legislation banning councils from promoting homosexuality, she said, but it also “didn’t have the kind of toxicity that characterises almost all debates in modern political discourse”.
In passing the law she said the Scottish Parliament “actually managed to take an issue that did divide opinion, that was controversial, debate it and decide it in quite a consensual and civilised way”.
She added: “Looking back at it now a decade on, I think there is lots to reflect about the substance of what was done.
“I think it made Scotland a better place, a more inclusive place with equality much more a reality, saying to gay couples that their love was as valid as anybody else’s and could be celebrated in the same way.”
However she said some countries including Scotland are now seeing attempts to “pushback” on some rights – saying this means “those of us who believe in equality” have to “keep fighting”.
Ms Sturgeon said: “We’re talking here of almost a global phenomenon where debate on all manner of issues has become much more divisive and toxic, and social media has a big part to play in that.
“But on the substance on this, on all manner of rights we are seeing pushback. That is true in LGBT rights, it’s true in some respects in woman rights with abortion law in America just now.
“I do think we are living through a time when we are being reminded that progress is reversible and can’t ever be taken for granted.
“Those of us who believe in equality and inclusion and tolerance and abhor prejudice and discrimination have always got to keep fighting and almost re-fighting these battles.
“It’s a bit sad to think that, but I guess it has always been that way, and I think we are being reminded of that just.”
Mr Harvie said that equal marriage “remains one of the greatest achievements for equality in the devolution era”, but warned that Scotland must not go backwards on equality.
He said: “For most of my adult life it has felt like Scotland was moving in the right direction when it comes to LGBTQI+ rights and equality.
“But over the last few years there has been a noticeable regression; with a reactionary and dangerous culture war being waged against trans people in particular. We must not go backwards.
“Just as we overcame the prejudices of the past, I am confident that we can and will succeed again.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said: “Equal marriage was a landmark moment of progress for Scotland.
“On the day this Parliament voted for it, rights and freedoms were born that should never be taken for granted.
“Scottish Liberal Democrats were in the vanguard of delivering same-sex marriage and we will continue to fight for the rights of the LGBT+ community without hesitation.”
