Gay / Lesbian Church Weddings for Denmark, 2012.

Denmark was the first country in the world to provide near-marriage for same-sex couples, in a system of registered partnerships that were widely described as "gay marriage". The only surprise in the announcement that like their Scandinavian neighbours Sweden Norway and Iceland they are to extend this to full marriage is that it has taken them so long. (Finland also has plans for full marriage equality).

The real interest here, is that this legislation explicitly includes gay church weddings, as there are already in Sweden and Iceland, with the approval of the dominant Lutheran Church in those countries.

Denmark is the latest European nation to announce plans to introduce gay marriage, with same-sex couples to be allowed to marry on Church of Denmark premises.

The Danish coalition Government’s church minister, Manu Sareen, told local newspaper Jyllands-Posten that gay men and women will soon be able to marry when legislation is introduced early next year.

“I look forward to the moment the first homosexual couple steps out of the church. I’ll be standing out there throwing rice,” he said.

“I have many friends who are homosexuals and can’t get married. They love their partners the same way heterosexuals do, but they don’t have the right to live it out in the same way. That’s really problematic.”

Denmark was the first country in the world to allow gay civil partnerships with legislation in 1989. Public polls suggest around 69-percent of the population supports same-sex marriage according, The Copenhagen Post reports.

The first same-sex weddings could take place as early as March, 2012 after the legislation is passed.

Star Observer Online

One of the people who participated in Denmark's first near-marriage ceremonies was a minister of religion. For the most part, European Lutherans do not have a problem with partnered gay or lesbian clergy, and most Danes will take this in their stride. Still, there will be some opposition.

....marriage equality in Denmark isn’t welcome by all with some religious leaders opposing the plans fearing it will cause a spilt in the Church of Denmark. Henrik Hojlund, of the Evangelical Lutheran Network, said gay marriage would be “fatal” for the Church and told the same newspaper “The Church of Denmark is being secularised right up to the alter in a desperate and mistaken attempt to meet modern people halfway.”

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Cathedral Wedding for Senior Lesbian Clerics

When Massachusetts introduced same sex marriage in 2003, it as alone among American states. Since then, a steady trickle of others have followed, either with meaningful civil unions or with full marriage equality. More will follow this year, and is increasingly obvious, as VP Biden has observed, that full marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples is now "inevitable" across the country. It is now only a matter of time.  Although the opponents of same-sex marriage claim theirs is a principled stand based in religion, it is also becoming obvious that religious opposition too is crumbling. As with so much else that was previously prohibited on the pretext of religious belief, the religious objections to homoerotic relationships will in time be recognised as without religious validity for the modern world.

One recent Boston wedding was just one more among many - but it carries with it strong symbolic importance, and is an important signpost to a future without religious discrimination. Two lesbian Episcopalian clerics, each holding an office of some seniority and importance in their diocese, were married in the Cathedral Church of St Paul in Boston, in a wedding service solemnized by the Episcopalian bishop of Massachusetts, the Right Reverend M Thomas Shaw SSJE.  What could be more respectable than that?

Same-Sex Church Weddings Inch Closer in Finland

Last year, the Swedish government and the state church, the Swedish Lutheran church, between them approved legal recognition for same sex marriage including church weddings - the first country in the world where this has happened. At the time and since, I have noted that other Scandinavian countries were likely to follow suit: I know that the subject has been discussed (out of the public eye) by church authorities in all of them. Now the Finnish Lutherans have taken a public step in that direction.

Gay Marriage, in Church: Denmark Next?

Last year, Sweden approved full marriage equality, including church weddings if desired, for gay and lesbian couples. Up to now, this has been the only country where it has been possible for same sex couples to have a full religious wedding in a major denomination, and have it recognized by the state. (The other countries which recognize gay marriage, do so only for civil marriages.) However, support for full religious marriage has been building steadily, among voters and in some of the churches themselves. It now seems likely that Denmark will soon follow Sweden's example. This is not surprising - they have similar religious traditions, and similar social outlooks. Denmark was the first country in the world to approve civil unions, but has been slow to convert to full marriage. However, 1997 the bishops approved church "blessings" of civil unions, as long as the words "husband" and "wife" were omitted, so there's not a long way to go.

Now the government is considering a proposal to go the whole way, and allow full religious weddings. With almost two thirds of voters expressing support for the measure, and six out of ten bishops also ready to agree, it looks like an open goal just waiting for the final push.

Gay Marriage – in Church: Sweden

It’s been a long time coming, but has been expected ever since same – sex marriage was approved by the Swedish parliament back in May this year – immediately before the news from Iowa.  As I predicted at the time, the Swedish Lutheran Church has now approved church weddings for gay and lesbian couples.   The interesting part of this to me is that although individual pastors are not obliged to perform same sex ceremonies, local churches do not have the same opt-out:  all churches must be available to all couples.  If the resident pastor won’t do it, a substitute must be brought in from elsewhere.

Once again, this advance has come after discussion that began much earlier, before the church approved “blessing of homosexual partnerships years ago.”  In so doing, the majority of the church discounted the traditional view that such partnerships were somehow “against Scripture”.  This is another very welcome step in the defanging of that fallacious argument. (See “Countering the Clobber Texts”)