Back when Canada passed its marriage-equality legislation,

[Betty Karlson]

2. When the Dutch did it (2001) there was over a decade of controversy over clerks refusing to assist

same-sex couples to get married. There were municipalities that actively sought to protect these clerks. And the way SSM was introduced, the gay movement didn't seem interested in changing minds, but rather in vengeful retribution against "the christians". In 2006, a liberal candidate even suggested disenfranchising all members of religious congregations.

There was a church schism over the issue of allowing SSM to be consacrated in church (the biggest schism since 1886) and when in 2005 a small conservative-christian party entered the government, things finally started to settle down with a compromise (every municipality had to have a clerk to assist with same-sex marriage, but the few remaining refusing clerks were tolerated - until 2012, when the new government decided to outlaw refusing clerks.

Part of the reason that went down well is that by then, the youth movement of the small conservative-christian party had come out in limited support of marriage equality.

That still didn't prevent a candidate in - of all places - Amsterdam to advocate recriminalising homosexuality and punishing it in violent ways, during the 2014 municipal elections campaign. He was not elected, but he was not arrested either.