| Summary: | At present, the issue of granting legal recognition to same-sex couples is high on the political agenda in a large number of countries. In places where such a family type is not recognized, the debate tends to be intensifying. In many countries in Europe, it is already well established, and the discussion then more often concerns various amendments to existing rules. The first country at all to introduce a legal recognition of same-sex unions was Denmark in 1989, and the term “registered partnership ” was invented for that purpose. In all Nordic countries, same-sex couples today have the possibility to contract a registered partnership, a civil status that in practice is not much short of a marriage. Such a family type was in the second place introduced in Norway in 1993, subsequently in Sweden in 1995, Iceland in 1996, and, finally, in Finland in 2002. By 2003, same-sex unions had been
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