Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
While the Vatican claims it does not yet affect Catholic churches, a new law passed by the Danish parliament will force all churches to conduct gay marriages on their premises; priests can refuse to conduct the ceremonies, but they cannot stop them from taking place in their sanctuaries.
According to The Telegraph, the impending collision between same-sex marriage and religious liberty has occurred in Denmark and a large majority of its lawmakers voted in favor of dispensing with freedom of religion in order to allow same-sex couples to have church weddings.
The law which was approved by 85 of the country’s 111 Parliamentarians, goes into effect on June 15.
“I think it’s very important to give all members of the church the possibility to get married. Today, it’s only heterosexual couples,” said Denmark’s church minister, Manu Sareen, an agnostic who is responsible for introducing the bill.
The new law allows individual priests to refuse to carry out the ceremony, but the local bishop will be forced to find a replacement so that the ceremony can take place in whatever church the couple chooses.
It’s important to point out that the country of Denmark does have an official church – the Evangelical Lutheran Church – that is supported by taxpayer money.
Niels Messerschmidt, the information officer for the Catholic Diocese of Copenhagen, told Vatican Radio that the law applies only to the state run church, although there has been discussion of pushing it further.
“For the moment we [the Catholic Church] are not worried,” Messerschmidt said. “There have been some discussions in the media where people said this legislation should also [include] other religious groups but there has not been anything from the official level.”
Karsten Nissen, the Lutheran Bishop of the Danish National Church’s Diocese of Viborg, who is refusing to carry out the ceremonies, has warned that the new law risks “splitting the church”.
But many say it will go much further than that and will inevitably drive Christians underground where they can follow the way of Jesus Christ in peace.
“Denmark has been a pioneer in gay rights since 1989, when it became the first country in the world to offer civil unions for gay couples,” The Telegraph proudly boasts.
It has now become a pioneer of a different sort. Denmark will go down in history as the first nation on earth to destroy the religious liberty of its people for no better reason than to let same-sex couples have a church wedding.
Not exactly a triumph for equal rights, is it?
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