So it’s Pentecost (a.k.a. Whitsun) weekend, which traditionally is a popular weekend for weddings here in Sweden. I read somewhere today though that nowadays, it’s more popular to tie the knot in August or September (something to do with the weather). What is also increasingly popular is to go abroad and get married. When you come home you send in the paperwork to the authorities, and your marriage is recognized in Sweden. Even if you have married someone who is underage and would not have been able to get legally married here - the authorities will make an exception to the age rule.
But they won’t make an exception to the sex rule. The Swedish gay couple Lars Gårdefeldt (who is a minister in the Church of Sweden, btw) and Lars Arnell got married (yes, married-married, the real deal) in Canada about two years ago. When they came home and sent in the paperwork, they were registered not as married, but in a “registered partnership” which is the name of formalized same sex relationships here.
They appealed the decision, and now, after being turned down in two other instances, the Supreme Administrative Court (Regeringsrätten) has given them leave to appeal. The couple seems hopeful, but Hans Regner, legal expert on the matter, doesn’t think that the court will acknowledge something we don’t have ourselves (i.e. same sex marriage). If the court recognizes their marriage as what it is - a marriage - then it will set a strange precedent: a same sex couple with the resources to travel to a country who allows same sex marriages will also be married in Sweden, but those who can’t or don’t want to get married abroad will have to do with the “registered partnership”. Of course that won’t work. So it would be a huge surprise if the court would do anything else than to turn down the couple’s request to be registered as married.
The gay marriage debate won’t be settled in courts - it is a legislative issue. And with over 70 percent of the population and all but one parliamentary party (a party which in the latest polls came in just above the 4% needed to be in the parliament) in favor of same sex marriage, I don’t know what we’re waiting for.
The debate article I wrote about the other day has gotten a reply from Göran Lantz, professor in health care ethics. It’s well formulated and well reasoned. Anders Svensson has been given the opportunity to reply directly. This time he manages without references to military dictatorships like Burma and North Korea (even though North Korea can’t really be called a military dictatorship, it’s more a personality cult taken to the utmost extreme, but Svensson is a lawyer, not a political scientist, so he’ll get a pass for that one). But he still invokes the image of a country where people are hindered to say and think what they want, and where conversations fall silent in fear of repression:
I was gladly surprised by the positive tone which go through much of Göran Lantz’s contribution. he says, though, that those who want it have freedom of speech. That is actually not the case any longer in Sweden.
Freedom of speech is not that which is marked by the new ground of values of political correctness. On the contrary, freedom of speech is being subjected to serious attacks.
I often think about a headline which struck me already years ago. It says: “When conversation fall silent”. This has already begun in Sweden.
There is only one thing to say about that:
Seriously though, it would be becoming to Svensson and his ilk if they for once would produce any clear examples on how this silencing works and how freedom of speech is being infringed. Also, I am very interested to learn, in clear reasoning, how same sex marriage would affect freedom of speech negatively. Svensson has been allowed two articles in a big and highly regarded newspaper now. Countries in which freedom of speech is truly repressed (like Burma and North Korea) don’t usually let people complain about how they are being repressed. I would like Anders Svensson to talk to some Burmese and North Korean refugees about how Sweden is just as bad as their countries when it comes to freedom of speech. I think they could give him a useful lesson on the subject of what true repression looks like.
(I promise, the headline will make sense if you read on!)
Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet publishes a tired old same-sex-marriage-will-destroy-society tirade in their debate section today. It’s written by Anders Svensson, who says he’s a lawyer and law teacher at Stockholm University. I pity his students (and hope they take him on tomorrow):
Imagine a country were the legislators re-interpret human rights according to a value-neutral ideology, where dissidents are violated and where media censors unfit opinions. The military dictatorship of Burma or North Korea? No, it’s the country of Sweden.
Dear Anders Svensson: If you write a long opinions piece about a contentious issue and then get it published in a really large newspaper, where debate ensues and people are allowed to have different opinions and counterarguments are raised and you get support from some and critique from some, and all this happens without the police knocking on your door or you losing your job or getting imprisoned or tortured or threatened - that’s usually a sign that you’re not living in a military dictatorship.
His main argument against same sex marriage is not “won’t somebody please think of the children!” or “horses and box turtles and forty wives oh my!” but this:
It is not hard to see how a gender neutral marriage law would be yet another weapon of censorship against traditional values.
Oh really? What would be censored? How would this censoring work? Would legions of newlywed same sex couples invade newsrooms, lecture halls and kitchen tables everywhere to make sure everyone follows the “homosexual agenda”? Svensson, of course, doesn’t tell. But he sure is censored and oppressed, the poor little sod, sitting there at Stockholm University and getting his writing published in a large private newspaper. Yes, you can really feel the Swedish military dictatorship at work here.
But if the GLBT folks are so powerful that they can impose a brutal military regime à la North Korea on us unsuspecting Swedish citizens (they’ve done a great job of masquerading it as a pretty decent democracy, I can tell you), you would wonder why they haven’t managed to get that gender neutral marriage law passed in the parliament yet. Maybe they forgot to squeeze it in between brunch and facials.
A good society must rest on stable ground of values which are reflected in legislation. What does this ground of values look like? Well, it can’t lack values. In Sweden, we have abolished this ground of values and are traveling down a road of lack of norms. How can the legislature accept this?
If people aren’t allowed to think and speak freely, a democratically stable ground of values are missing. We don’t need any more laws which despite good intentions create a fearful society where conversations die out. I want to warn the Swedish parliament of taking further steps down this road of silence and censorship. The parliament should say no thanks to this sophisticated form of euthanasia for marriage.
As often with these kinds of articles, there’s no substance. No explanations, no examples, no logical arguments, not any arguments at all about why a “good society” can’t coexist with same sex marriage, why same sex marriage hinders people from thinking and speaking freely, which values will be destroyed and how and why conversations will be silenced. No explanation on how man-woman marriages will be “euthanized” if man-man or woman-woman marriages are allowed. No line of reasoning to follow. Just fluff and a lot of words.
Also, note this lovely allegory, used to rail against anti-discrimination laws and policies. As a metaphor for gay people, he uses a weed.
A dandelion isn’t discriminated against because it can’t call itself a tulip.
So, uppity gay-dandelion-weeds should be satisfied with the civil unions they have today (which people like Anders Svensson raised all kind of hell against when they were introduced in the 90s because they would destroy society, but which they now present as a great “separate but equal”-solution) and not destroy the lovely garden of heterosexual tulip-marriages. Dandelions can also silence conversations and turn countries into North Korea. Or something.
Tor of Antigayretorik takes on the train-wreck article here, tireless and to the point as always.
For the sake of my own sanity I really regret that I did it. But I browsed Söderbaum’s blog a bit more (see previous post for context). And found this gem that I just can’t keep from you. If you want to read it yourself the Swedish title is “Verka politiskt mot heteronormen är trams” (I’m not linking to him). And I am very tempted to create a new category for this, because the “stupidity”-category doesn’t really cut it. Here we go (translation mine):
If homosexuality would be completely normalized, it would inevitably lead to an even more explicit sexualization of society - all those “a bit too long” looks from a stranger are seen as a potential sexual invitation, which immediately makes us all sexual objects as soon as we are out among other human beings. Today we talk a lot about how terrible it is that girls are seen more as sexual objects than as persons. Yes, that is terrible - and imagine how it would be if that would happen to an entire population!
Oh noes! If we accept homosexuality then yucky fags might look at me as a sexual object!!! Sexual objectification happens to girls and that is bad, but it would be so much worse if it would happen to manly men like me! What if I catch teh gay from them?!?
Newsflash to Jakob E:son Söderbaum: gays might give you “a bit too long” looks today too. Hell, there’s even a close up picture of you on your blog, have you thought about what kind of activities that may inspire? And you know what: women can look to! (But of course in your universe no woman ever looks at other people with sexual interest unless they are married to them.)
Now, I have a practical idea for you: If you’re so scared of being oogled by someone of the same sex, you can just print out copies of some selected blog posts of yours and give out to those men you suspect of having an interest in you that goes further than discussing the wonderfulness of the Swedish monarch and other manly subjects, and they sure as hell will be running in the opposite direction!
Oh sweet Blind Io and all minor deities!
In today’s Dagens Nyheter, there is a letter to the editor signed Jakob E:son Söderbaum. Now for some reason DN doesn’t publish their readers’ letters on their website, but fortunately Jakob E:son Söderbaum has a blog (that I don’t want to link to, but if you read Swedish you can google his name and go on an adventure in a parallel universe). Jakob E:son Söderbaum is a “progress friendly conservative” (by “progress” he means returning to some unknown decade when we honored the king, kept our hands above the covers and our women in the kitchen), in his upper twenties or lower thirties. If you thought that Sweden was free of the “sex is gross, ewww icky icky icky”-crowd, think again.
Some background: a few days ago, Folkpartiet (the Liberal Party of Sweden) suggested repealing the law that makes it legal for parents to take their children out of certain lessons at school, such as sex ed or PE, due to religious or cultural reasons, and to force all children to take all classes. There has been some discussion on whether the Liberal Party’s idea is the best way to address the problem that some children aren’t allowed to learn about their bodies or to be seen in a bathing suit. I’m not sure how I feel about their proposal, but let’s leave that aside and focus on Jakob E:son Söderbaum.
He does not agree with the Liberal Party’s idea. No, he wants to excuse all children from sex ed. And he’s not even in with the abstinence only-crowd. He’s in the no mention of gross icky sex in school ever-crowd. Some of his arguments, put forth in the letter and in the ensuing discussion on his blog, are (with extra-craziness in bold, and my snarky responses in brackets):
- Sex ed teaches girls that they need to spread their legs for anyone, otherwise they are abnormal. (Because telling girls that they are not sluts or hoes if they like sex automatically means that you encourage them to do it anywhere with anyone. There can be no balance.)
- Sex should be taught by parents, only then can the serious nature of sexuality be properly conveyed to the rising generation. (And the parental version of sex ed should go “sex is gross and disgusting so you must save it for someone you love”.)
- Sex is for procreation only and sex ed teaches how to avoid procreation (Yes, let’s conveniently forget about reality: that the majority of adults will have sex a number of times without wanting to get pregnant. And that it could be a good thing to learn how to avoid STDs. And that not all people are heterosexual. But to base education on reality is such a bad idea.)
- Sex ed teachers are raping our children because talking to young girls about sex if you’re not their parent is akin to raping them. (He trivializes rape. What a surprise.)
- Sex ed teachers must be perverts, how else can they stand there talking about the subject day in and day out. (Yes, just like language teachers constantly mumble verb declinations and home ec teachers are unable to have a conversation that doesn’t revolve around pie crusts and cleaning products. Ohmigod, imagine what it must be like for OB/Gyns. They must be the most perverted people out there ever, staring at women’s icky parts all day and talking about stuff related to teh sex!!!!11!!!!eleven!)
- There’s too much sex in today’s society, it was better when it was a shameful secret. (So why are you discussing it? Doesn’t that add to the sexual fixation too?)
- Girls enjoying sex are almost whores. (And there he throws in some slut shaming to. Lovely.)
- Sexual pleasure is the lowest form of human feeling, and to acknowledge and seek sexual pleasure will lead you to become a sex addict who constantly think about and seek sex. (Oh, me thinks someone doth protest too much. Söderbaum says he’s in a “steady relationship”, but he doesn’t say he’s married, so he must be a virgin. For someone who’s not married, he seems awfully focused on sex. Doesn’t he know that subject is reserved for married people? Oh, I see, it’s only unmarried girls who aren’t allowed to think about sex. If you’re an unmarried conservative man - then it’s a-okay!)
Thank heavens that people like Söderbaum are a minority here and that he is sure to get some serious counter-arguments against him - it has already started on his blog. Now I need to go read some deviant and sex positive stuff before my head explodes.
Hoe-looking man writes too, and titles her piece “hardcore porn pussy anus lesbian sex dicks huge cock fuck ass pictures”, so that Söderbaum will find it when he goes on nightly internet adventures. LOL!
(Update: Here you can read more about the proposal from the liberal party, and reactions to it, in English)
So, we’re in some kind of a backlash here in Sweden. A backlash of the majority, against the minorities who demand equal treatment, a voice and some damn respect.
You see, according to “ordinary people” (ordinary = male, white, heterosexual, Christian by birth but not church going), the demands of “special interest groups” has gone too far (special interest = female, non-white, non-Christian, non-heterosexual).
- Why is everyone so sensitive? (they whine). I believe that all people are equal and have equal value and equal rights. But feminists and queer activists and immigrants and all those special interest groups, they want more than equal rights. They want special rights! And I never offend anyone! But you know, you should really grow some thicker skin and stop whining so much. Being offended is the new black it seems. And I’m free of stereotypes! I have nothing against gays and Muslims as long as they mind their own business! Being called offensive really offends me!
Well, I’m sorry, but if you feel that discrimination and hate crime and prejudice and judgmental attitudes against people not like yourself are bad, if you really believe that all human beings have equal value and rights, then you need to wake up and smell the coffee: this does not only mean educating and changing the KKK members, Hitler follower, rapists and Talebans out there - it also means that you, yes you, have to give up your preferential right of interpretation and your privilege. And yes, it also applies to me, being a white, university educated middle class European.
It does not matter if you have twenty black friends, never knowingly have uttered a bigoted or homophobic remark, and are a nice ordinary human being - you can’t expect the fight for equal rights and against discrimination and prejudice to stop at your doorstep, because it makes you uncomfortable to be called out on your privilege and your prejudices. You tell “minorities” (who, added together, really are the majority. White Christian men are in no way “ordinary people” seen in a global perspective) to develop a thicker skin. Well if being asked to examine your own privilege and acknowledge that your interpretation of the world is not a universal truth offends you so much, then you need to grow a thicker skin.
Saturday, on International Women’s Day, Claes Schmidt/Sara Lund was supposed to give a lecture on diversity and the equal worth on all human beings, in a pentecostal church in southern Sweden. It was not a church event - a women’s association called Zonta had rented the church for the speech, which was titled “Women, men and all the rest of us” (Kvinnor, män och alla vi andra). But when the minister of the church, Magnus Jonegård, heard about the lecture, he stopped the meeting. You see, Claes Schmidt/Sara Lund is not two different persons. Claes Schmidt/Sara Lund is one person - a heterosexual married man, who sometimes dresses as a woman under the name Sara Lund, i.e. a transvestite, and who does lectures and stand up comedy about norms and values, gender and “normality” (website in English here).
The minister said that he had nothing against Claes/Sara in person (they never do - love the sinner, hate the sin, you know), but that the contents of the lecture was against the values and teachings of the church. You know, human dignity, loving thy neighbor as yourself, respect - all very unchristian concepts…
The church was of course under no obligation to rent out its premises to Zonta and Claes/Sara’s lecture. But when the Swedish good templar order IOGT expelled Åke Green (the Swedish minister who compared homosexuals to a cancer growth on the body of society, was tried for this in court and acquitted), because Green’s opinions did not correspond with their values and teachings, then the Swedish Christian right was up in arms about it and said that this was so intolerant and undemocratic.
As Tor of Antigayretorik said then: it would becoming to the right wing Christians if they would think a bit further before they start to scream about “intolerance” and “oppression”.
And over in the States, Dolores Huerta, human rights activist and well-regarded progressive leader, was supposed to give a talk to Catholic school children about her funding role in United Farm Workers and the importance of public service. But she was stopped, because of her views on reproductive choice (which had nothing to do with her talk whatsoever), which makes her an “unfit role model”. Yes, social justice, integrity, non-violence… all very unfitting concepts for the Christian right it seems.
(Via Feministe).
For non-Swedish readers, the story is this: A dad buys his son a present for his sixth birthday at a big toy store in Gothenburg, Sweden. When the son opens the toy package, a card falls out. It says (my translation):
Homosexuals spread AIDS when they lick each others assholes.
What are they doing? Look at:
www.amoso.se
Dislike homosexuality
Not the homosexual
The store (Toys R Us) takes the incident seriously and say that it is unlikely that an employee is behind it. They say that they will search the part of the store where the toy was displayed (but of course they won’t be able to open all the toy packets to see if any more include the lovely surprise-gift).
AMOSO is a Swedish “organization” (or more like a one-man crusade) led by Ron Linden a.k.a. Ronnie Lindén. Linden says he’s a Swedish American living in California where he earns a PhD in science (yeah right). AMOSO stands for Avslöjande av Myter Om Sexuell Orientering or, in the international version, Exposing Myths About Sexual Orientation (EMASO, yes there is a website, won’t link, Google is your friend). In 2006, Linden went on a strange tour around Sweden, where he parked his van outside roadside McDonald’s and gas stations, and gave out free anti-gay literature aimed at parents who “worry about their child’s sexual orientation”. Sadly, his van was attacked, evidently by AFA (Anti-Fascist Action, an extreme autonomous left organization), which was a stupid strategy and only adds to the “they are out to silence us”-rhetoric used by Linden and his kind (of course, he blamed the attacks to “the homosexual mafia”). Linden has also linked hurricane Katrina and the tsunami to acceptance of homosexuality. He is behind the site www.akegreen.com, about the Swedish minister Åke Green who was tried for hate speech after a sermon about homosexuality. The case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, where Green was acquitted. Still, his case is used by fundamentalists who say that they aren’t allowed to say what they believe (only now they have a Supreme Court decision that says that they are…). (For more ranting about this kind of reasoning, I direct you to this post.) Antigayretorik has more about AMOSO (in Swedish).
Well, back to the card in the toy package. I wonder what the usual anti-gay suspects will say about this type of guerrilla activism. Of course we can’t know that AMOSO or Linden is actually behind it, it could be a supporter of Linden´s cause, or just someone’s idea of a sick joke. From what I could stomach of the AMOSO website, it seems limited to male homosexuality (with the usual anal fixation). So, if there are any more toy packets with cards, I guess the pink section of the toy store is safe.
Apparently, on the other side of the Atlantic, February 10-16 is Freedom to Marry Week (the 11th edition this year). As far as I know, this isn’t done in Sweden, but marriage equality and a gender neutral marriage law is very much on the political agenda right now, and it looks like a proposition on changing the marriage law will be presented by the government during this term of office. And a recent poll showed that 71 percent of Swedes are in favor of same sex marriage (more here).
Of course the opposition - in parliamentary politics only represented by the Christian Democrats, a minority party in the now ruling four party coalition - is loud. They try to push the idea that they do in fact speak for the majority, and when the result of the poll was published, they argued that people had misunderstood the question and wasn’t really aware of what a change in marriage law would mean. (Brimstone! Man and dog! The end of civilization!)
Their main arguments are the usual suspects.
1. “Won’t somebody please think of the children”. Well, I know that fundies of all stripes and colors have a hard time grasping this, but marriage and children are separate entities. Children is no direct outcome of marriage, and marriage is no prerequisite for children, legally or biologically.
A law which allows same sex couples to marry does nothing to their ability to have children. When I got married, my ability to have children did not change. Neither will it for same sex couples.
Equally, preventing same sex couples from marrying will not hinder them from having children. There are already an unknown number of children living with same sex parents in Sweden. If you really want to “protect” them, and any future children of homosexuals, you need to sterilize all gays and lesbians, repeal the laws that makes adoption and insemination legal, and get the social services to take custody of all the children that are already in same sex families. This has nothing to do with marriage whatsoever.
2. “What’s next?! Dogs and coffee tables and your own daughter and forty women oh my!” (a.k.a. the slippery slope argument). Today, the right to marry is limited by five factors: sex, age, relationship, number and species. Changing one of them does not mean that they all change. There is no “inherent” logic saying that a change in one of them, will bring on a change in all. For example, in 2006, France raised the age limit by which girls can marry from 15 to 18 years of age. I’m sure similar changes has been made elsewhere, also in Sweden, and this doesn’t seem to have changed any of the other factors. No slippery slope there, then.
(And to state the obvious: When we were to get married, me and the husband-to-be, had to sign a paper stating that to the best of our knowledge, we weren’t related nor were we already married to someone else (and maybe some other stuff which I now have forgotten) - the consideration of impediments to marriage (yes, I had to look that up in the dictionary). We had to sign this paper. As far as I know, neither dogs nor coffee tables can sign legally binding agreements. Neither can they answer “yes” when the officiant asks, you know, the question. The argument is so stupid, but it keeps getting dragged up again and again.)
And please, God has nothing to do with this. God is not mentioned in the marriage law. In the eyes of the state, a marriage is a legal contract which grants certain rights and responsibilities. The problem is that today, certain religious associations (the Church of Sweden, but also others) have the legal right to wed people. The right is also given to non-religious persons, such as judges, and others that have been approved by the state. That religious associations have the right to exercise public authority is strange, to say the least, especially since the state and the Church of Sweden have been separated for eight years now (yes I know it’s weird that we, one of the world’s most secular countries, had a national church for that long). Make marriage separate from religion! If people want to have a Swedish church ceremony, or a Muslim one, or Jewish, or Wiccan, or whatever, that’s fine. If you feel that your marriage isn’t “real” unless you have promised this and that in front of God and the congregation, or have danced seven times backwards around a fox den at full moon, by all means go ahead and do it. But it has nothing to do with the law, and it should have no legal implications.
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