Denmark to allow gay marriage next year

 Jonny Payne  pinkpaper.com/

The Danish government plans to introduce gay marriage legislation in the new year, with same-sex couples to be allowed to marry on Church of Denmark premises, the church minister has revealed.

Jonny Payne

The Danish government plans to introduce gay marriage legislation in the new year, with same-sex couples to be allowed to marry on Church of Denmark premises, the church minister has revealed.

The coalition government’s church minister, Manu Sareen, told Jyllands-Posten newspaper gays will soon be able to marry. “The first same-sex weddings will hopefully become reality in Spring 2012,” he said. “I look forward to the moment the first homosexual couple steps out of the church. I’ll be standing out there throwing rice.”

Sareen added: “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.” 

But some senior religious figures oppose the plans, claiming it could cause major splits in the church. Speaking to Jyllands-Posten, Henrik Højlund chairman of the Evangelical Lutheran Network said gay marriage would be “fatal for the church” and added: “The Church of Denmark is being secularised right up to the alter in a desperate and mistaken attempt to meet modern people halfway.” 

Denmark became the first country in the world to allow gay civil partnerships when it introduced the legislation in 1989, and public polls suggest around 69% of the population supports same-sex marriage, The Copenhagen Post reports.