Same-sex marriage in Belgium 14 December and published on 23 December 1999 made the Act of statutory cohabitation go into effect on 1 January 2000. During 1999, the PS (French-speaking Social Democrats) and Ecolo (French-speaking Greens) also announced they agreed to legalise same-sex marriage. At that point, the only remaining party in Government that opposed same-sex marriage was the French-speaking liberal PRL (later merged into MR), mainly because it was opposed to adoption rights for same-sex couples. PRL agreed not to block same-sex marriage if adoption rights are excluded. As the first same-sex marriage in the Netherlands was performed on 1 April 2001, the
LGBT rights in the Czech Republic soldiers, and allows homosexuals to serve openly. Homosexual prostitution was decriminalized in 1990. There is some legal recognition of same-sex couples. Unregistered cohabitation has been possible since 2001. The Czech Republic has granted "persons living in a common household" inheritance and succession rights in housing, as well as hospital and prison visitation rights similar to married heterosexual couples. A bill legalizing registered partnership, with some of the rights of marriage, was rejected four times, in 1998, 1999, 2001 and 2005. However, on 16 December 2005, a new registered partnership bill was passed by the Czech House of Representatives; it was