Norway legalises gay marriages

A few days ago, Norway became the 6th country to equalise marriage laws for same-sex couples. The country now joins Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, South Africa and Canada in granting gay people full marriage rights. Britain gives gay couples all the same rights as heterosexual couples under the Civil Unions law, except the term "marriage".

Norway made the move through a parliamentary vote, replacing the 1993 law that gave same-sex couples the right to register civil unions.

In an earlier essay, I reported that Singapore's Attorney-General, Walter Woon, had in a recent speech described those who felt that the right to marriage for same-sex couples is a human right as "fanatics". See the story Attorney-general says human rights now a religion with fanatics

By that formulation, two-thirds of the Norwegian Parliament must be crazed zealots, for on 11 June 2008, that was the majority that approved a new law legalising same-sex marriage in the Scandinavian country.

"I am extremely pleased that we managed to get this last stage passed. Now we have to tackle the prejudice which still exists in society," Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen told the media.

Norway's new law also ensures equal parenting rights. For example, a lesbian who is married to another women who becomes pregnant through in-vitro fertilisation will have all the rights of parenthood "from the moment of conception" in the same way that a man in an opposite-sex marriage marriage automatically has those rights when his wife conceives through IVF.

In cases of adoption, both partners, gay or lesbian, would have complete joint parenting rights.

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The next place to watch is Connecticut, where a marriage decision is pending. Its Supreme Court is due to rule any time now on this question.

Same-sex marriages in California will start on 16 June 2008, one month after the state's supreme court ruled that it would be against the California constitution's guarantee of equality to deny same-sex couples the right to marriage.

An application by anti-gay groups to stay the implementation of the 15 May decision till November has been rejected. November is when there is likely to be a constitutional amendment on the ballot to define marriage in California as a union of a male and a female. As discussed in the earlier essay Attorney-general says human rights now a religion with fanatics, opinion surveys indicate the vote could go either way.

One survey found that 51% approved of the state's Supreme Court's decision saying it was a matter of equal rights that gays and lesbians should be permitted to marry.

That's a lot of people, in a state with a population of 38 million.

Meanwhile, a new survey conducted in New York state found 53% of people there supporting Governor David Paterson's recent executive order for all branches of government to recognise same-sex marriages contracted outside of New York. A court had earlier found that it would be discriminatory not to treat same-sex marriages solemnised out-of-state the same way as opposite-sex marriages.

53% is a lot of people too, in a state with a population of over 19 million.

I wonder what our Attorney-General now has to say about this rampant epidemic of fanaticism. He might be frothing at the mouth... like a fanatic perhaps?

© Yawning Bread 

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