10 Years with Marriage Equality in Sweden Today

10 years ago, May 1, 2009, Sweden got married equality. A great success for the LGBTQ movement and a gigantic step forward for the same-sex couple's rights in Sweden.

We should not underestimate the importance of our being living in a country where we are equal before the law in our close relations, RFSL says.

Since the Partnership Act in Sweden was introduced in 1995, the LGBTQ movement and our allies aimed at a gender-neutral marriage law.

After many years of advocacy work, a majority of parliamentary members were finally positive for a gender-neutral marriage ban in 2009. Despite this, the Alliance Government could not submit a bill on a new legislation because the Christian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna) were against the proposal. Instead, the law was run as a committee initiative by the Civil Committee (Civilutskottet), which is an unusual way of promoting legislation. The Christian Democrats voted against the proposal and several Conservative Party (Moderaterna) members abstained, but an overwhelming majority of our MPs voted in favour.