Gay marriage around the world

Candy Holmes, right, cries with joy beside her partner Darlene Garner outside the superior court after applying for a marriage licence in Washington DC
Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA

Carlos, right, and Emilio are showered with rice as they leave the Tres Cantos city hall in Madrid after getting married in 2005 in the first gay wedding in Spain
Photograph: Javier Lizon/EFE

Newlyweds Sharon Papo, left, and Amber Weiss, right, stand with Patti and David Weiss outside San Francisco city hall after exchanging wedding vows on the first full day of legal same-sex marriages in California in 2008
Photograph: Erin Siegal/Reuters

Patrick Decker, left, and his Dutch partner Stephan Hengst during a wedding ceremony on a boat at the Gay Pride canal parade in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 2009
Photograph: Bas Czerwinski/AP

Hillary Goodridge, right, and her new spouse Julie Goodridge leave the Unitarian Universalist Church in Boston after being married in 2004
Photograph: Winslow Townson/AP

Eric Ethington, left, exchanges marriage vows with Doug Okun as they hold their twin daughters at San Francisco's city hall in 2004
Photograph: Paul Chinn/San Francisco Chronicle/AP

Lesbian newlyweds Gudrun Pannier, left, and Angelika Baldow are showered with confetti outside a registry office in Berlin in 2001. They were among the first homosexual partnerships to be officially recognised under a German law conferring marriage-like status
Photograph: Wolfgang Kumm/DPA

Derryn Grey and Kim Wilson, Pam Molsick and Helen Gibson with their twin daughters and Lois Bukowski and Kathryn Baer, all from Oakland, California, celebrate with other same-sex couples for Valentine's Day at San Francisco city hall in 2004
Photograph: Arleen Ng/EPA

Lesbians Da Na, right, and Bu Xiu (not their real names) pose at Qianmen street in Beijing in 2009 to campaign for same-sex marriages and the acceptance of homosexuality in China
Photograph: Jason Lee/Reuters

Roger Lockyer, left, and Percy Stephens pose for photographers after their civil partnership ceremony at Westminster town hall in London in 2005
Photograph: Paul Hackett/Reuters

Shannon Sickles, left, and Grainne Close arrive at Belfast city hall in 2005 as the first set of civil partnership ceremonies for gay couples in the UK take place in Northern Ireland
Photograph: Paul Faith/PA

Stamford mayor Dan Malloy, right, walks away as Tom and Ralph Colucci-Massotti kiss after being granted a civil union at Stamford town hall, Connecticut, in 2005. Connecticut was the second state to sanction same-sex marriages
Photograph: Stephen Chernin/Getty Images