Friday, October 05, 2007

Norwegian Clergy won't wait on homosexual marriage

In sharp contrast to the situation here in Amerika, Scandinavia continues to push forward with gay marriage. In a prior post I cited a story about the Church of Sweden moving towards gay marriage ceremonies. This story (http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article2027930.ece) shows a grass roots movement among Norwegian clergy to move forward while the church bureaucracy grinds along:

Sluggish church bureaucracy could mean a wait of several years before the emergence of an approved gender-neutral wedding service. Nils Jøran Riedl, chaplain at the Norwegian School of Management, told newspaper Dagsavisen that many ministers will defy the church by beginning to carry out gay marriages now. "There will be a certain amount of civil disobedience.
I want to start wedding homosexuals as soon as a new Marriage Act is in place," Riedl told the newspaper. Riedl said that their right to marry couples carried the legal right to carry out such ceremonies before a liturgy is in place. Riedl lives in a registered same-sex partnership and has long fought for equal rights for homosexuals in the church. Other clergymen interviewed by Dagsavisen agreed that they would carry out such ceremonies before a formal liturgy was approved.

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