The Majority Votes In Favour
Last year on April 11th, the vast majority of church council members voted in favor of creating a new liturgy specifically to include homosexual couples.
88 of the 115 council members believe that a new liturgy should be created so that all members will be able to get married in their local church. On Monday, the new liturgy went into effect.
The leader of the church council Kristin Gunleiksrud Raaum tells VG, “With this approval, the church sends a message saying that gay people’s value is the same as everyone else’s and that their love is true and strong, just like that of those of us who have married a person of the opposite sex have been able to experience.”
The First Gay Marriage In The Church
The first gay couple to marry in the church will have their wedding on Wednesday, February 1st at 12:01 AM.
“I said that if we were going to get married, I want to get married in the church,” tells Skjelnæs to VG.
Kjell Frølich Benjaminsen (63) and Erik Skjelnæs (70) were both raised in the Church of Norway and have been waiting to get married in the church for 16 years.
Fiddle players Ola Hilmen and Tuva Syvertsen of the popular Norwegian folk band Valkyrien Allstars will be preforming at the wedding per request of Benjaminsen, who was once their manager. They are both openly gay.
“To hear that a new liturgy has been put into effect is great news to anybody who has been left outside of society until now and has even been criminalized for their choice of partner up until 1972. I am pleased to hear that my manager, Kjell F. Benjaminsen, is finally able to marry his long-term partner, Erik. They will go down in history as the first men to marry, making them an inspiration to all,” Hilmen tells The Nordic Page.
