So today was a pretty decent day over all. The sun was out, birds were singing, and hm ... what else? Oh yeah, that' right - Iceland's parliament passed a law creating one marriage law for all Icelanders, regardless of sexual orientation.
Yep, that's right. The bill that the national Church of Iceland was so terrified of is now a reality.
So what changed, exactly? Well, long story short, they basically took the existing marriage law that outlines all the goodies you get from being married, and replaced any mention of "man and woman" to "two individuals".
I really have nothing to add to this, except for a special message for the religious leaders of this country who enjoy our tax money while at the same time trying to restrict our human rights:
AHahahahahahahahahhaaahaahahahahhaaahaha!
Have a great weekend.
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They're still successfully restricting our rights. Polygamy is still banned, so is the marriage of first cousins. The bans for both of those originated in religious doctrine, in the latter case recent scientific studies have shown that there's no reason to enforce such a ban in an open society.
ReplyDeleteTrue justice won't be achieved until we abolish the marriage law altogether. It shouldn't be the task of government to track personal relationships, or to give special rights to those that choose to register their personal relationships.
That might be the case, and a subject for a fine exploration of the institution of marriage itself, but I think this step towards societal equality and away from religious doctrine over secular law is cause for celebration.
ReplyDeleteEven an Atheist can utter " Amen brother ...
ReplyDeleteAmen.
(I wrote the original comment, but didn't sign in)
ReplyDeleteYes of course, as long as there is a state marriage law at all it shouldn't come with arbitrary and religiously motivated restrictions. It still does, but less so with the passing of this legislation, and that's a cause for celebration.
I completely agree with the overall spirit of this posting though. The Church of Iceland should be ashamed of itself, forcing religious institutions to marry homosexual couples has never been a part of the legislative proposal.
The proposal has always been to alter the secular definition of marriage, but allow religious institutions to do whatever they want. Whether that includes excluding homosexual couples from their ceremonies, or redheads for that matter.
Given that, there's really no explanation for the stance of the church other than them seeking to enforce their particular idea about morality on the rest of us. At best they want the state to take the hit of the bad PR they'll get for refusing to marry homosexual couples. In either case, shame on them.
I just wanted to point out that the battle is far from over. For one the Church of Iceland is still part of the Ministry of Justice, and there's still a large body of legislation that needlessly sticks its nose in people's personal affairs.
That needs to be fixed, but I fear that now that the largest remaining pressure group for legislative change has gotten what they want that's never going to happen.