Worldwide Geography of Laws Recognizing Homosexual Unions

Zenit News Agency ^ | August 1, 2003

[NYer]

Date: 2003-08-01

Worldwide Geography of Laws Recognizing Homosexual Unions

A Tendency That Started in Scandinavia

ROME, AUGUST 1, 2003 (Zenit.org).- The recent document published by the Vatican concerning homosexual unions responds to laws approved on this matter in countries around the world or of draft laws currently under study.

The following is a summary of such laws as found in countries throughout the world.

--Scandinavia: Denmark was the first Nordic country (1989) which allowed the registration of the civil union of two persons of the same sex. Norway (1993), Sweden (1994), Iceland (1996), and Finland (2002) then adopted this decision. Homosexual couples have the same rights as married heterosexual couples, but they cannot adopt a child or take recourse to artificial insemination, with the exception of Sweden, where adoptions have been possible since 2002.

--France: Since October of 1999, according to the law regulating civil unions (PACS), homosexual couples benefit from fiscal (joint tax returns, rights of inheritance), and social (work permits, housing) dispositions just like married couples.

--Canada: Homosexual couples are recognized since April of 2000. A draft law on homosexual "matrimony" is currently being debated.

--Germany: Since August of 2001, a "contract of common life" gives similar rights to homosexual couples as those of matrimony, although it does not grant the fiscal regime proper to married heterosexual couples nor the possibility to adopt children.

Belgium: Since June of 2003, the law authorizes homosexual "matrimony" with the same rights as heterosexual matrimony, with the exception of adoption.

--Croatia: Since July 2003, homosexual couples have the same rights as heterosexual couples who live in free union.

--Great Britain: A "civil union" draft for England and Wales was published by the government on June 30. This new juridical statute would give homosexual couples the rights of the heterosexual. It must be submitted to Parliament before the end of the year.

--Italy: Since 1998, the cities of Pisa and Florence have opened a Registry of homosexual unions.

--Switzerland: The cantons of Zurich and Geneva have adopted a "civil pact of solidarity."

--Spain: The autonomies of the Basque Nation, Navarre, Andalucia, and Catalonia have adopted laws on "unions of persons of the same sex."

--United States: The state of Vermont recognizes the civil union of homosexual couples. The state of New Jersey (December of 1997), and the city of San Francisco authorize the joint adoption of a child by a homosexual couple.

[NYer]

Succinct view of a growing trend.

[NYer]

A Tendency That Started in Scandinavia

Who'd have guessed ... it gets mighty cold and awfully dark up there in winter.

[apackof2]

LEV 20:13 " `If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.

1CO 6:9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders

RO 1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. [25] They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen. RO 1:26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. [27] In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

[Wilhelm Tell]

This means that all the gays will get "married" and live happily ever after and the gay swinger bars will close due to lack of business as everyone "settles down." We will no longer be treated to the spectacle of gays "cruising" and having sex in public. The gay rights groups will tell their people to behave more like most heterosexuals now that they have the benefit of "marriage" -- no more having sex five times a day with different partners. They will also give up the "right" to adoption, like they have in most European countries. Of course people demanding their "rights" will also remember their obligations. </sarcasm>

[DaBroasta]

It's ironic that the 'native' populations in Eurpoean countries have been in decline for several decades now and they've been forced to import labor from the Middle East. In countries like Iceland they even pay women to encourage them to produce offspring. Yet they are so politically sensitive they would embrace a practice that is the antithesis of human procreation.

[sam_paine]

In countries like Iceland they even pay women to encourage them to produce offspring.

We do that here with welfare....

[End Times Sentinel]

"Europe is a continent ravaged by two world wars, plagued by appeasers and dictators, and immersed in socialism. Europeans lost the will to live the moral life long ago..."  Ben Shapiro

Owl_Eagle

” WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
DIVERSITY IS STRENGTH"

[DaBroasta]

We do that here with welfare....

True, but you can't say that on television.

[jocon307]

"nor male prostitutes"

Does this mean that female prostitutes are off the hook (lol, no pun intended)?

Just a gigilo, everybody knows (eternal), life goes on without me!

[LiteKeeper]

INTSUM - A tendency that started in Sodom

[ReaganWarrior]

Sodom Hussein?

[apackof2]

Yup, life here goes on with out you but eternity doesn't

[Devil_Anse]

But of course! This is gonna be good for the homosexuals.

I laugh every time I think of how so many of us are just wishing (hoping, begging?) for less influence by the government (laws) on our day-to-day lives, while this particular group of people is begging for the opposite: regulation, laws, rules, legal sanctions, etc. It all belongs in the category of "be careful what you wish for."

If there is a MALE couple out there in which each partner has been physically faithful to the other for a long time (say, oh, 10 years--I'll make it easy for them), I wish they would come forward. (But I guess I'm not likely to find such a couple on Freerepublic.)

I'm not saying that adultery doesn't occur in heterosexual couples. But it has a name, and it is frowned on by society. Who frowns on one half of a male-male couple cheating on the other?