Look to Sweden...

... for good news. This story just came out yesterday on the Associated Foreign Press.

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(Stockholm) Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said Thursday legislation allowing same-sex couples to marry is on track and should become law by next May.

Reinfeldt’s coalition government is divided, he conceded, over whether the legislation should allow for church weddings. The Conservative Christian Democrats believe the bill should only allow for civil marriages.
The Prime Minister said he is confident that a compromise will be reached.

“Sweden could have a gender neutral marriage law by May 1, 2009,” Reinfeldt told Swedish Radio.

Sweden allows civil partnerships. Under a law enacted in 1995 same-sex couples haves most of the rights and obligations of marriage to gay and lesbian couples who register. But it did not provide for adoption or IVF.

In 2003, the law was amended to allow registered partners to adopt children and since 2006, women in registered partnerships have been allowed to receive in vitro fertalization.

A parliamentary committee studying the issue last year called civil partnerships outdated and recommended Parliament allow same-sex marriage.

Six of Sweden’s seven political parties support the legislation that would allow same-sex couples to marry either in civil or church ceremonies, leaving only the small Christian Democratic Party opposing the measure.

The Swedish Lutheran Church has offered blessing services for couples in civil unions since 2007, but it has balked at allowing pastors to perform weddings for gay couples.

Under the bill introduced by Reinfeldt’s government, pastors would have the right to decide whether to officiate at same-sex marriages.