Same-sex union legislation marriages performed in the Netherlands are recognized in Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten. Whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry has been and remains the topic of debate worldwide. Thirty-four countries and four jurisdictions worldwide have passed constitutional amendments that explicitly prohibit the legal recognition of same-sex marriage and sometimes other forms of legal unions as well. Seventeen countries and twenty-nine jurisdictions worldwide have authorized civil unions or unregistered cohabitation for same-sex couples as an alternative to marriage. The legal name of those unions as well as the number of rights that they provide can vary greatly. The first
Same-sex marriage in Indiana a bill removing the state's same-sex marriage ban and replacing references to "husband and wife" with the gender-neutral term "spouses" amongst other amendments, was introduced by Representative Jim Lucas (R). The bill passed its first reading on January 9, 2017. A lawsuit brought in 2002 by the ACLU on behalf of 3 same-sex couples seeking marriage rights and challenging a 1986 law that limited marriages to male-female couples failed in the Marion County Superior Court in May 2003. The judge ruled that restricting marriage to different-sex couples "promotes the state's interest in encouraging procreation to occur in a context where