Swedish church lets priest to say No to gay wedding
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Northern Europe
The Church of Swedish has rejected the motion to dismiss pastors who are not willing to marry same-sex couples. After a long debate of more than two hours, the proposal was marginally rejected.
The motion had the ultimate punishment for those priests: excommunication. That means that the church would exclude them from the church, the sacrament and even redemption. The Christian newspaper Dagen reports this on Tuesday.
The motion came from the Social Democrats in the church parliament. The Swedish national church has a political representation in the board, dating back to the times of the state church until 2000. Other political groups argued against the motion, as did six bishops. The church's bishops do not want to introduce rules that could disenfranchise priests. “It raises a deep fear for me," said Bishop Mikael Mogren according to Dagen.
In Sweden, people marry in the church. The civil marriage and the religious blessing come together in the same ceremony.
Since marriage is opened for people of the same sex, there has been continuous debate whether officials can say No doing this. In the Netherlands, the country where same-sex marriage was ‘created’ in 2000, marriage registrars had the guarantee that they would keep their freedom only marrying heterosexuals. But after a couple of years, the law was changed. This happened in other countries too. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has said states have the freedom to exclude registrars from this freedom.
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