---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ariel Herrera <aherr
...@aiusa.org>
Date: Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 11:23 AM
Subject: AFP: Norway adopts gay marriage law
To: OUTFrontSC <outfron
...@aiusa.org>, OutFrontHRAC <outfronth
...@aiusa.org>
Agence France-Presse (Norway):
Norway Adopts Gay Marriage Law
Norway's parliament voted 84 to 41 to adopt a law that allows marriage for
gay people, enables them to adopt children, and gives lesbians access to in
vitro fertilization.
Thursday 06.12.08
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jko_BIHizUFFqUtmEaUrAEoPXFWw
OSLO (AFP) — Norway's parliament on Wednesday adopted a new marriage law
that allows homosexuals to marry and adopt children and permits lesbians to
be artificially inseminated.
After a heated debate, the members of parliament adopted the text by a vote
of 84 to 41.
The three centre-left coalition parties in power and two opposition
parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals, voted largely in favour of the
law, while the Christian Democrats and the far-right Progress Party voted
against it.
Norway thus became the sixth country in the world to grant homosexuals the
right to marry on an equal footing with heterosexuals, according to
Norwegian television TV2.
"This decision is of an importance comparable to universal suffrage and our
law on parity," Labour Party rapporteur Gunn Karin Gjul said during the
debate.
The most controversial part of the law is that which gives lesbians the
right to be artificially inseminated. The sperm donor must be identified so
that the child can seek out his or her biological father at the age of 18.
"We are now creating a system where the father is reduced to a sperm
sample," lamented Ulf Erik Knudsen, a member of the far-right.
Outside the parliament, a handful of opponents protested with posters
reading "Have fathers become superfluous?" and "Parliament has no mandate
to change the laws of nature."
Among other things, the new legislation replaces a so-called "partnership
law" adopted in 1993 which gave Norwegian homosexuals the right to civil
unions.
Health care workers who do not want to perform artificial inseminations on
lesbians because of their personal convictions will not be under any
obligation to carry out the procedure.
The new law is expected to enter into force at the end of this year or
early next year.
Homosexuality was illegal until 1972 in Norway, a country which has since
become one of the most liberal in the world in the field.
--
Tony R. Lee
National Resolutions Committee
AGM Planning Committee
Mid-Atlantic
Amnesty International, USA
tonyr...@gmail.com
(202) 390-7888 cell
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