Earlier this week - on April Fool's Day, as it happens - the Swedish Parliament passed a law making marriage gender neutral. This means, that Swedish couples can get married regardless of whether they are two women, two men or one of each. I'm all for it, but I won't go into detail at the moment. Read the media, will you!
Since the churches in Sweden have the right to marry people, a debate has sprung up regarding whether this right gives leeway to individual churches and pastors to refuse to marry same-sex couples. The (Lutheran) Church of Sweden, for instance, will come to a decision on the issue when its Synod meets in October.
Here in Finland, the society is traditionally far more conservative than in neighbouring Sweden. We have had registration of civil partnerships for some time now, but the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (not to mention all the other churches) is still struggling with the consequences of this fact. And same-sex marriage isn't even an issue!
