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 Swedish
Church OKs Gay Weddings
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: March 19, 2007 - 7:00 pm ET
(Stockholm) If the Swedish Parliament
accepts a government funded report recommending it amend its civil unions law to
allow same-sex couples to marry the Church of Sweden says it will perform
marriage ceremonies.
Even if lawmakers decide to maintain civil unions
the Church said it will conduct ceremonies for gay couples, and those ceremonies
would be the same as a wedding liturgy except the word marriage would be amended
for gay couples to state union.
The decision by the Church's leaders make the
Swedish denomination one of only a handful in the world to conduct gay
marriages. In Canada the United Church - that country's largest Protestant
denomination - conducts same-sex marriages, along with some Reform Synagogues
and the Unitarian Church and the Metropolitan Community Churches.
Unitarian and MCC churches also perform gay marriages in Massachusetts - the
only state in the US where same-sex marriage currently is legal.
Sweden's civil partnership law was enacted in
1995 and gives most of the rights and obligations of marriage to same-sex
couples who register. But the country's LGBT community last year stepped up
lobbying to have the law amended to permit gays and lesbians to marry.
The Church of Sweden currently performs blessing
ceremonies for same-sex couples but the church does not register them. To
do that couples must sign a civil registry at a government office.
The new position adopted by the church would end
the need for going to a civil registry office and treat gay couples in the same
way as opposite-sex couples married in the church.
If a gay marriage bill is adopted by Parliament
the same and opposite-sex couples would have church marriages.
That the Church accepted the recommendations of
the government report before it is presented to Parliament is expected to put
considerable pressure on lawmakers to approve the gay marriage plan.
©365Gay.com 2007
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