The leader of a Faroe Islands political party took a stand in favor of sexual morality on Tuesday when he refused to dine with Iceland Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir and her lesbian partner during a state visit to his country.
Sigurdardóttir, who has lead Iceland since 2009, is a practicing lesbian who “married” her partner Jónina Leósdóttir in a highly publicized ceremony in June of this year.
Calling the presence of Leósdóttir a “provocation,” Member of Parliament Jenis av Rana refused to attend at dinner in honor of the prime minister.
“My party is formally against homosexual marriage,” said av Rana. “If I were to participate in the official dinner, it would be the same as saying that I support a union that is contrary to nature and condemned by the Bible. And that is something I will not risk under any circumstances.”
Although av Rana belongs to a more conservative Christian political party, his statement was echoed by Alfred Olsen, of the liberal Sambandsflokkurin party. “It is against nature for a man or a woman to live with a person of the same sex,” Olsen told the media.
The Faroe Islands are a semiautonomus territory of Denmark, which in 1989 was the first country in the world to create same-sex “civil unions.” However, such legal recognition for homosexual relationships is rejected by the more conservative islanders, who also prohibit homosexual adoption, according to the Irish Times.
