A small but significant example of this is the United Kingdom’s recent debate in Parliament of a bill recognizing the right to same-sex marriage, which follows a decision taken in France this spring to legalize same-sex marriage. Indeed, the UK is something of a latecomer: thirteen countries already allow gay marriage, and the usually conservative current US Supreme Court recently struck down the “Defense of Marriage Act,” adopted in 1996 explicitly to ban gay marriages, and a law prohibiting gay marriage in California.