18, but 16- or 17-year-olds may get married with their parents' or guardians' consent. If they are unable to obtain this, they can gain consent from the courts, which may be granted by the Magistrates' Courts, or the County or High Court family divisions. Gender restrictions Legal, social, and religious restrictions apply in all countries on the genders of the couple. In response to changing social and political attitudes, some jurisdictions and religious denominations now recognize marriages between people of the same sex. Other jurisdictions have instead "civil unions" or "domestic partnerships", while additional others explicitly prohibit same-sex marriages. In 1989, Denmark became the first country in the modern era to give same-sex couples the right to formalize their relation as a registered partnership. , twenty eight countries have come to recognize same-sex marriages for civil purposes, namely the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina, Denmark, Brazil, France, Uruguay, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Finland, Ireland, Malta, Costa Rica, Taiwan, Colombia and the United States. Denmark gave same-sex couples the right to marry in 2013, and this right extends to a right to get married in the Church of Denmark, although individual priests have the right to refuse to perform such marriages. On June 26, 2015, Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the ban on same-sex marriages were de jure unconstitutional, which de facto legalized the same-sex marriage process in the United States. Europe To avoid the use of the term "marriage", some governments provide civil unions, which, depending on the jurisdiction, are open to same-sex couples only, opposite-sex couples only, or both same-sex and opposite-sex couples, to confer all or a portion of the benefits of married status. Civil unions (and registered/domestic partnerships) are currently recognized and accepted in approximately 30 out of 193 countries worldwide and in some U.S. states. In some countries where it has been adopted, applications for marriage licenses have far exceeded governmental estimates of demand. Some jurisdictions, such as the nations of Israel, Aruba, and the Netherlands Antilles, as well as the U.S. state of New Mexico recognize same-sex marriages lawfully entered into elsewhere, while not permitting them to be performed locally. In addition to civil authorities, some religious denominations ceremonially perform civil unions and same-sex marriages, and recognize them as essentially equivalent to other marriages. For example, Lutheran churches in Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and some