Conscientious Objectors and the Marrying Kind: Rights and Rites in Dutch Public Discourse on Marriage Registrars with Conscientious Objections against Conducting Same-Sex Weddings

Abstract

The opening up of civil marriage to same-sex couples in the Netherlands in 2001 and the existing legal recognition of conscientious objections among civil servants had created the legal and political possibility of marriage registrars with conscientious objections against conducting same-sex weddings. Through a critical discourse analysis of selected examples from printed, online and televised media between 2007 and 2014, this article shows how this registrar was constructed as a 'social problem' that stayed on the political agenda for several years, but also as a particular fictive character that reinforced oppositions of Christians vs. homosexuals in terms of discrimination. Moreover, this article argues that, although the issue was framed in terms of certain (primarily secular) rights, the subtext of some contributions also pointed to the importance of (quasi)religious rites in the civil wedding ceremony, in which the civil marriage registrar played a pivotal role.