Slowly, but Surely

Leading Swedish church embraces same-sex marriage

Sweden's dominant Lutheran Church will marry same-sex couples if the government legalizes same-sex marriage, the Swedish Church Assembly said March 16.

Sweden has had a registered-partnership law that grants same-sex couples the rights of marriage since 1994, and is now planning to extend full marriage rights to gays and lesbians.

A church spokesman said priests would be allowed to choose individually whether to marry gay couples, and the church might call same-sex marriages something other than "marriages."

About 78 percent of Swedes are Lutherans, though most don't go to church.

The United Church of Canada is believed to be the only mainstream Christian church that performs same-sex marriages at present.

Full same-sex marriage is legal in Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain and Massachusetts.


News clip from here.

Art by Clemente.