I have no idea if Hamlet was gay, and neither do you. But Denmark's new center-left coalition government has proposed legislation legalizing same-sex marriages, and hopes to have it enacted by Spring, 2012. Shakespeare willing or not.
According to the Copenhagen Post
The government plans to introduce a bill just after the New Year that will allow same-sex couples to hold weddings in the Church of Denmark and be ‘married’ under Danish law. Same-sex couples are currently allowed to have ‘registered partnerships’, a civil status, but are barred from marriage and church weddings.
So, awesome news! Of course some clergy from the Church of Denmark aren't happy:
"Lots of people are mistaken in thinking that homosexual weddings are just the next step after female priests. But it is much more consequential and beyond the boundaries for normal Christianity," Højlund ((a local priest)) told Jyllands-Posten.
"The Church of Denmark is being secularised right up to the alter in a desperate and mistaken attempt to meet modern people halfway," he said, adding that same-sex marriage would be "fatal for the church."
Fatal? If the Church of Denmark can best Asgard, I think they'll be able to handle the challenge. You need to chill there, Højlund. Still, aside from the ridiculousness of the assertion, one might reasonably ask "Who, as in some Prince of Denmark, cares?"
Less than five percent of Danes today attend church services on a weekly basis...
Polls taken over the years, and right up until last week, have consistently shown that around 69 percent of the population supports same-sex marriage in the church.
69. Naturally.
It's been more than a year since any country has legislated marriage equality. The last country to do so was Argentina in July of 2010 (while New York State was the last United State to do so four months ago). But a new crop of countries could be sprouting.
In Denmark, as noted above, legislation is to be introduced with both government and popular support.
In Uruguay legislation has already been introduced. It could be a race between Denmark and Uruguay to see which country will be the eleventh to make same-sex marriage legal.
In France, the Socialist Party has come out in favor of marriage equality. If they win the next election as polling now indicates, they may well introduce equality legislation.
In Finland, a 'parliamentary legislative initiative' might overcome the current block on legislation by the Christian Democrats.
In Luxembourg legislation is still pending in the Chamber of Deputies.
In Australia, a Labor party conference in December may, with or without the approval of Prime Minister Gillard, demand a 'conscience vote' in Parliament on the issue of marriage equality. That won't be enough to pass legislation with the opposition conservative party voting in lockstep against the proposal as they have threatened, but it will be a good start.
In the United Kingdom, the Conservative government has proposed making same-sex marriages legal by 2015. Zzzzz...
In Nepal, their new constitution will apparently never get written. But if it were to get written it would, by order of their Supreme Court, include marriage equality as a fundamental right. At least that's the theory. Getting married on the slopes of Mt. Everest before all its snow melts would be cool. Get with it Nepal!
There are also court challenges to marriage inequality in France, Ireland, Columbia and the United States that I am aware of, and possibly other locales.
Nothing comes easy. Nine countries, six states, and two other jurisdictions in the eleven years since the Netherlands became the first to say 'We do' for LGBT couples may not seem like a lot, but neither was Rome destroyed in a day. Yet Marcus Bachmann is right to fear the barbarians.
With public opinion in such nations as France, England, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, and Denmark consistently showing supermajority support for equality, it should only be a matter of a few more years before antediluvian legislators in those countries come around. And eventually it will happen in the good 'ole US of A too. Just don't hold your breath.