The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing two huge gay marriage cases next week.
But America still lags behind several other countries when it comes to equality for gays and lesbians.
With nearly half of Americans supporting gay marriage, gay rights advocates are hoping the U.S. will follow the lead of western European governments in establishing stronger federal legal protections for gay couples.
Eleven countries have legalized same-sex marriage so far, according to the Pew Research Center, and seven of them are in western Europe or Scandinavia. And just one country each in Latin America and Africa allows gay couples to marry.
This list includes all the countries that have legalized gay marriage and a couple that have strong anti-discrimination laws and protections for same-sex relationships.
The Netherlands was the first country to legalize gay marriage in 2000.
The groundbreaking law also gave couples in the Netherlands the right to adopt children.
Belgium followed suit and passed gay marriage in 2003.
Three years after it legalized gay marriage, Belgium gave gay couples the right to adopt, according to Pew. Belgium has also outlawed employment discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Spain legalized gay marriage by a close margin in 2005.
Before it legalized same-sex marriage, Spain already banned employment discrimination against gays, according to a Harvard Law publication on the subject. In 2007, Spain passed a law that let people officially change their gender before going through a sex-change surgery.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
Please follow Law & Order on Twitter and Facebook.
