In a unanimous decision, all 49 parliament members voted to amend the marriage contract to be gender neutral today at noon.

Iceland owns once again. There was already a same sex partnership with all the same rights, but it carried a separate name and was under a separate legal entry in the laws. now all marriage contracts will be gender neutral with Person A and Person B. Iceland joins the ranks of the other 8 countries with same sex marriage:
Belgium
Canada
Iceland
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
South Africa
Spain
Sweden

Iceland is also the first country to have elected a female president (back in 1980!), and the first country to elect an openly gay (lesbian) and married prime minister who is currently serving. Iceland also has the highest percentage of equality with females in job positions alongside men (it's close to 50/50), but still has a problem with pay equality.

http://visir.is/ein-hjuskaparlog-fyr.../2010367989645

(my translation of the article to English)
One Marriage-law for all

Parliament today approved a law on one marriage-law. Regarding an amendments to existing legislation about gay marriage. The same law will therefore apply to both heterosexual as homosexual, which can let them get married together in congregations and stewards. The bill presented by the human rights minister was approved unanimously by 49 votes.

Numerous members explained their votes, saying that most of the major steps were involved. "I say yes with the sun in the heart. I think Iceland and the world be better than yesterday, "said Margaret Tryggvadóttir, a member of the movement.

Wikipedia entry of Iceland's same sex marriage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-se...age_in_Iceland

Cool!

gay... =P

iceland is also cool because it can make europe stop using airplanes

I say we all guess what number the USA will be.

~ Blacking the sky out, Grounding planes, and Supporting Lesbianism?

Sounds like Awesomesauce.

I'm pretty sure the UK should be on that list? Could be wrong, but i remember something along these lines in the UK too

No, these are only countries where the legal contract you are entering into is called exactly the same as the others. The UK has something like 'civil partnerships´ and it doesn´t contain all the same rights as straight-only marriage.

Germany has 'lebenspartnershaft' but it´s missing things like mutual adoption of an unrelated child (you can mutually adopt a kid that is biologically one of yours) and no tax breaks like straight marriages. There are many countries with some kind of partnership, but these are the only 9 with the same legal entity for both.

It's a nice time to be gay then.

I'm happy for gayslandish people)

Pedro: your new avatar pwns! =D

;D I looked like that yesterday. When the HD went kaput lol

Iceland is cool

LOL! who thinks they can say it correctly?

aayah feeyatla yo kutl

This is a pretty gay thread.

Isnt Iceland bankrupt and sitting below a few feet of ash? This looks like a ploy to convince young rich gay men to visit their country and "stimulate" the economy.

I need a stimulus package.

Originally Posted by poopinmymouth

I need a stimulus package.

I lol'd!

On a related note, something I find very weird here in the UK is that the Civil Partnership is only applicable to same-sex relationships! You can't get one if you're in a heterosexual relationship! That doesn't make any sense...

No but seriously, most of the economic stuff is on the rise. IMF says we are doing better than they predicted, and the ash seems not to have caused much problems either. There is some problems with the housing market (too many people upside down on their houses) but that will hopefully be sorted soon also.

Unemployment is still 2/3 what it is in the US.

Originally Posted by poopinmymouth

Unemployment is still 2/3 what it is in the US.

That's because Iceland's population is like 1/60th of the United States...
If we had less people, we'd hardly have any unemployment. (go go population control!)

Hopefully the US will come to it's senses and fully legalize same sex marriage though. In a land of the "free", you would think people could do as they wish.

Originally Posted by Vassago

That's because Iceland's population is like 1/60th of the United States...
If we had less people, we'd hardly have any unemployment. (go go population control!)

Hopefully the US will come to it's senses and fully legalize same sex marriage though. In a land of the "free", you would think people could do as they wish.

Lol, someone doesn't know how statistics work. It's a percentage of the total population, which makes it appropriate to compare. If it were raw numbers, with only 1/1000 the population total, Iceland would have like 1/5,000,000 the unemployment of the US, since there are more unemployed in each state than there are people total in Iceland.

Yeah they refuse to pay back the money ^^
Maybe they triggered the vulcano themselves to get the tourism biz
rolling!

no I'm quite sure this is all military stuff and a big promotion gag to promote Eyjafjallajökull's as air defense system

"buy one of icelands brand new Eyjafjallajökulls and no enemy aircraft will enter your airspace ever again.. !! Buy two and your neighboring countries airspace is empty too"

Originally Posted by Disco Stu

Yeah they refuse to pay back the money ^^
Maybe they triggered the vulcano themselves to get the tourism biz
rolling!

This is completely untrue. The Icelandic government and people have done nothing but say how they will pay it back. What they refuse to do is pay it back in such a way that the entire country is driven into poverty, which is what the UK and Netherlands tried to do with the initial agreement. Right now a new deal is being worked on between all 3 governments and seems close to completion, at which point it will be payed back.

It's especially ironic that the UK is so upset about it when they had the same problem with Northern Rock and also refused to pay, but there wasn't a bigger country that could bully them into doing it anyway.

Eh, Champagne! Have a banana

When did this forum turn into a my country is best thing though? Anyway.. good for you

In Arkansas you can marry farm animals.