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Lena Posner Korosi is the President of the Swedish Jewish Community and all of the Scandinavian Jewish Community. She is also the Vice President of the ECJC Board. Mr Jonathan Joseph is hosting the blog for Lena this week.

On January 27th 2005 the Swedish government decided to appoint a special commissioner, assisted by two reference groups; one was comprised of representatives of the Swedish Parliament and one of the religious communities, to review a number of issues relating to marriage and registered partnership for same sex couples.

The Official Council of Jewish Communities in Sweden was represented in the reference group of religious communities.

It has been very interesting to be part of such an assignment, and interesting to notice how different aspects for and against same sex marriages have been thoroughly examined.

In Sweden there are two options for getting married one is civil marriage by specially appointed administrators, often lawyers, politicians and people in official positions in Swedish society.

The other is in the various religious communities by priests, imams and rabbis. The religious communities conduct the religious together with the civil ceremony, legally necessary to be integrated.

More than 50% of marriages in Sweden are performed by the religious communities.

The main problem addressed is the fact that most religious communities do not want to conduct same sex marriages out of religious belief.

The arguments are taken from religious sources (Bible, Koran), but there has also been a strong tone of homophobia from some in the religious community.

For me as a Jew, belonging to a people who have suffered anti-Semitism and discrimination in all forms, it became obvious that I, and we as Jews, should support a change in legislation allowing for homosexual couples to be married with the exact the same legal rights as heterosexual couples.

This strong argument of ours created debate with some of the free churches, the Catholics and the Muslims who are completely against the recognition of homosexuals (at all).

The special commissioner had carefully listened to all arguments and to our great pride some of the Jewish suggestions have been sincerely taken into consideration when now proposing for the new legislation.

The suggested new legislation is the following;

The religious community will be able to continue officiating marriages in accordance with their belief. Those rabbis, priests and imams who do not want to perform same sex marriages will not be forced to do so. This is in accordance with Swedish legislation of religious freedom, the way we see it.

The new requirements for conducting civil marriages are that the officials have to agree to perform same sex marriages in order to be appointed by the County Administrative Board.

The Official Council of Jewish Communities in Sweden has said that we fully support the suggested new legislation, in contrast to all other religious communities in Sweden. We also claim that if there is a rabbi prepared to perform a same sex marriage for a Jewish couple, we are open to it.

This is a controversial matter in the Jewish world, as so many other issues within the Jewish community at large.

We do however have to be pragmatic and inclusive, and it is my main concern that wherever there is a risk of any kind of discrimination of other groups and minorities, we as Jews need to be in the forefront to raise our voices.

Only then do we become trustworthy when claiming our own rights against hatred and discrimination.