Odd couples: a history of gay marriage in Scandinavia PDF
Preview Odd couples: a history of gay marriage in Scandinavia
Odd cOuples For Martin ODD COUPLES A History of Gay Marriage in Scandinavia Jens Rydström ap Amsterdam 2011 isbn 978 90 5260 381 0 © Copyright 2011 Jens Rydström / Aksant Academic Publishers, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, by photoprint, micro- film or any other means, nor transmitted into a machine language without writ- ten permission from the publisher. Cover design: Jos Hendrix, Groningen Photo cover: Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin Cover: The cover photo shows a “Church Stair Wedding” in Stockholm 2001. Registrar Kristina Rennerstedt performs the registration ceremony, while parish priest Lars Gårdfeldt waits for the couple to enter the Church to be blessed. The Swedish Bishops formally banned partnership registrations inside the Church between 2001 and 2009. Aksant Academic Publishers/AUP, Herengracht 221, 1016 BG Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.aup.nl Contents Preface 7 Introduction 11 Chapter One: The road to registered partnership 39 Chapter Two: Is marriage what we want? 69 Chapter Three: Gay marriage in mainstream politics 91 Chapter Four: Implementation 115 Chapter Five: Gender and marriage statistics 127 Chapter Six: The next step 145 Summary and conclusions 167 Notes 179 Appendix: Political parties and gay and lesbian rights groups in Scandinavia 213 References 221 Index 239 Preface Two events around 1990 marked the beginning of a new era for gay and lesbian rights movements around the world. The first was the introduction in Denmark in 1989 of a law on registered partnership that granted same-sex couples legal recognition nationally. On 1 October 1989, eleven gay couples registered their partnerships in the City Hall of Copenhagen and met the world press on the City Hall Square ‒ incidentally an old cruising ground for gay men. The second event was the application for marriage licences in Hawaii by one gay and two lesbian couples. They were rejected, but three years later the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that it was a violation of the state’s Constitution to deny marriage licences to same-sex couples.1 Not only did these two actions set the agenda for the majority of the gay and lesbian movements in Europe and the United States for the next decade, but they also signalled the two paths that the political work for gay and lesbian rights would take on each side of the Atlantic. Whereas the U.S. gay marriage lobbyists have relied on court decisions and have waged their struggle for marriage rights mostly in the judiciary, their European counterparts have strived to influence national parliaments and the European Parliament to pass laws and recommendations for the recognition of same-sex couples. An- other difference between the European and U.S. experience is that some U.S. jurisdictions have moved directly to full marital rights for gay and lesbian cou- ples, resulting in strong counter movements that in many cases have managed to obtain reverse decisions prohibiting same-sex marriages or civil unions. In Europe, the legislators in general first granted limited marital rights to same- sex couples and then alleviated or abolished one limitation after the other, thus paving the road for full marital rights. In a way, the European model has proved more successful, in that it has gradually worn down the opposition to same-sex marriage, with the ironic result that the Christian Democratic parties that first opposed the laws on registered partnership have later defended them as more appropriate for same-sex couples. For various reasons, it was the gay and lesbian movements in Scandinavia that first succeeded in introducing the idea of a legal regulation of same-sex re- lationships in the general political debate, but it was far from self-evident that marriage was what the gay and lesbian movements wanted. We will explore the ways in which the gay and lesbian communities discussed the issue of gay mar- riage from the 1970s onward and how mainstream politicians responded to their 8 Odd Couples demands. Personally, I was a bystander to this process and did not take part in these discussions. Instead, I was rather heavily involved in activism for the In- ternational Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) in the 1980s and did not par- ticipate at all in the lobbying for registered partnership. When the law on regis- tered partnership was adopted in Sweden in 1995, I remember I was happy but not profoundly moved. It was more like I felt when Sweden won the bronze medal at the 1994 world championship in soccer. I had had absolutely no inter- est in soccer before, but when the unexpected good results of the Swedish na- tional team affected everyone around me, I found myself cheering in front of the TV set. For me, gay marriage became a personal choice when Sweden got the law in 1995, and my partner and I discussed whether or not to register our relationship. I wanted to do it, because I wanted to have a fun party to celebrate, but my partner dismissed the whole thing as “petit-bourgeois rubbish.” After two years, I managed to persuade him, and we had a great party. Afterwards, we both agreed that the moment in front of friends and families felt more signifi- cant than we had expected, and that state recognition was not unimportant. To register partnership ‒ to marry ‒ was a political action, to be sure. It was demon- strated by the fact that the advertisement announcing our union that we want- ed to place in the local newspaper Smålänningen caused the summoning of an extra editorial board meeting, or so we heard. They accepted the advertisement, but a little later we were reminded by an anonymous letter we received that the change of attitudes in society was not complete. The letter contained our wedding advertisement, on which someone had scribbled “shame on you both.” Even if we smiled at this rather meek protest, it made us aware that the part- nership registration, just like a wedding, was a public ceremony, and that recog- nition takes place on several levels. These experiences were part of the process that gave me the idea for this study. What did the formal recognition of a cou- ple mean? And how does state recognition of same-sex couples affect society? This book is based on research carried out in 2003–2005 for a project fund- ed by the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS). I searched archives and interviewed activists and politicians in all five Nordic countries as well as the autonomous areas of the Faroe Islands and Greenland.2 As I write this preface, the news reaches me that Portugal has become the sixth country in Europe to allow marital rights for same-sex couples. So it is about time for me to put a stop to my project. I want to thank all those who shared their experiences with me, and also the volunteers in the gay and lesbian archives in each country, in particular Hanne Bielefeldt and Karl Peder Pedersen from LBL in Denmark, Jussi Nissinen from SETA in Finland, Þorvaldur Kristinsson from Samtökin ’78 in Iceland, Espen Ophaug from LLH in Norway, and Stig-Åke Petersson from RFSL in Sweden. In Finland and Iceland, where my language skills were insufficient, Anna Hei- no and Hrafnkell Tjörvi Stefánsson provided help in finding and interpreting Preface 9 important documents for me. I also want to thank Peter Edelberg and Hans W. Kristiansen, who have read the whole manuscript and given me valuable advice, and Leif Pareli, who has given me advice on some of the intricacies of Norwe- gian lesbian and gay history. My dear friends Þorvaldur Kristinsson and Kati Mustola patiently explained various aspects of Icelandic and Finnish society to me and generously shared their knowledge of queer history in those countries. Last, but certainly not least, I thank Glenn Rounds for patiently correcting my English. The publication of this book has been made possible by a generous grant from the Royal Swedish Academy of Science and from FAS, the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research, for which I thank them. I also want to thank the San Michele Foundation, which made it possible for me to work with the manuscript during three wonderful weeks of work and leisure on the Isle of Capri. Finally, I want to thank my life companion since 1984 and registered partner since 1997, Martin Loeb, to whom I dedicate this book. Lund, December 2010
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