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Loading ...Norway Gay Marriage Bill Passes Final Hurdle
06.17.2008 12:45pm EDT
(Oslo) Norway’s upper house passed a new equality law Tuesday giving gay couples the same rights as heterosexuals to marry, adopt children and have artificial insemination.
The Norwegian law was passed as gay couples wed in California on the first full day that same-sex marriages were allowed there.
The new Norwegian legislation replaces a 1993 law that gives gays the right to enter civil unions similar to marriage, but did not allow church weddings or adoption. It takes effect Jan. 1.
“We are so overjoyed. We have worked for this for so long,” said Jon Reidar Oeyan, leader of the Norwegian National Association of Lesbian and Gay Liberation. “Now we are going to celebrate. I didn’t dare until I heard the chairman of the upper house bang the hammer.”
Opponents, including the Christian Democrats and the Party of Progress, argued that children need both a mother and a father in a traditional family, opposed assisted pregnancy for lesbians, and said the law was rushed through the legislature.
The law gives individual congregations and clergy the right, but not the legal obligation to perform the ceremony.
About 85 percent of Norway’s 4.7 million people are registered as members of the state Lutheran Church of Norway, although far fewer are active.
Since the church is split on gay marriage, it is likely to allow each congregation to decide on whether to conduct gay weddings, as it did last year in allowing parishes to decide whether to accept clergymen living in gay partnerships.
Current legislation requires that the prospective mother be married or in a civil union with a man before they could have artificial insemination.
In 1989, Denmark became the world’s first country to allow civil unions for gays, similar to Norway’s outgoing law. In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to offer full marriage rights to gay couples.
