Date: Mon, 4 Jul 94 19:31 GMT+0200 From: Lewis Taylor Kom Ut International is a translation of key articles from RFSL's bimonthly newspaper, Kom Ut Stockholm, Sweden No. 3 1994 "YES" to Registered Partnership!--And then came the celebrations! ----------------------------------------------------------------- A few nervous seconds of anticipation on the visitor's balcony in the Riksdag was followed by jubilation. The overwhelming victory is a fact! The partnership law has passed by a margin of 30 votes. This is a historic moment - on the 7th of June 1994 - which means that homosexuals in Sweden will be able to get married beginning in January of next year. Officially it is known as "registered partnership." But gay men and lesbians are already speaking of "getting married" and of getting ready for the "wedding." The battle started more than 20 years ago, but intensified once the Danish partnership law was passed in 1989, and finally culminated on June 7th this year. Sweden will be the third (or fourth, depending on how you count Greenland) country to give homosexuals this possibility. However, the outcome of the voting was uncertain right up to the last minute. This is in large part due to the Swedish Riksdag's offset system, designed to keep the balance of power constant even if some members are absent. If a member from one of the political blocs has to be absent, then the other bloc is required to eliminate one of their members from the voting. However, the attitude to the partnership law cuts right through party boundaries and there was a danger that the fragile majority proponents of the law believed they had would be eliminated by having Liberal Party members, who were positive to the law, being eliminated from voting due to the offset rule. After a six-hour long, very emotionally loaded debate, in which the opponents to the law chose to call on formalities to defeat the law because they could not agree on other reasons, the vote was taken: 171 yeas, 141 nays, 5 abstentions and 32 absentees. The celebration in the visitor's balcony drowned out the speaker's strict voice: "Opinions from the visitor's balcony are not permitted." The announcement of the result was followed by celebrations all around the country. In Stockholm the celebrations were accompanied by champagne under the close attention of the mass media. The news took first place in all the TV and radio news programs that evening. One of the TV news programs called it the "greatest audience success of the year" referring to the fact that homosexuals from all over the country had chosen to follow the debate directly from the visitor's balcony at the Riksdag. The partnership debate in Sweden has been the most thorough in the world up to now. Nor has the matter has not been studied so thoroughly any where else in the world. RFSL has often criticized the slow progress, but today there is at least an extremely weighty mass of material that can be used in other countries in their battle for partnership. Representatives from the Norwegian and Finnish Organizations were guests at RFSL's celebration festivities. "Welcome to our little exclusive club," said Gro Lindstad, chairperson of the Norwegian LLH, and received a big round of applause from the happy audience at Huset, RFSL's premises. In Norway, the opposition to partnership has continued. Now that Sweden has also passed a partnership law, the position in Norway has been reinforced. In Finland and Iceland the debate on partnership has started, but it looks as if the Czech Republic will be next to pass such a law. Barbro Westerholm, the chairperson of the Partnership Committee, was also at the party. She was greeted with applause that threatened to continue forever. Among those who abstained from celebration is the newspaper Dagen with its editor Olof Djurfeldt at the head. "No answer to our prayers against partnership," was his comment about the fact that the prayers of 150 people in a church in Stockholm were ignored by God. Mr. Djurfeldt considers the decision to be "tragic," but does not doubt: "Their orientation is not irreversible, their temptations are not irresistible," is what he wrote the day after the defeat. ================================================================== Unique political ploy in partnership debate ------------------------------------------- Quite unexpectedly Sweden's homosexuals received help in the partnership debate from Bjorn Borg Underwear, who placed a four-color two-page spread in Svenska Dagbladet, the conservative Stockholm daily, the day of the partnership vote. Freshly baked bread in the shape of large erect penises leaned against each other in the center of the ad. In fine print was the text: "Because of the vote today in the Riksdag as to whether homosexuals are to be allowed to enter into registered partnership or not, we would like to remind the congregation of the eighth chapter of the fifth book of Moses, verse three: "Man does not live by bread alone." This was followed by a recipe for bread. Anders Arnborger, CEO of Bjorn Borg Underwear, told Kom Ut that the reactions to the ad were very strong from various directions. "We have received letters from women and young men who write that they will never again buy our products." But the reactions from homosexuals have been very positive, as far as Kom Ut can tell. Homosexuals have considered the ad to be an expression of support for a political question that is important to us. Such political ploys by companies is nothing new for Sweden. Anders Arnborger did not want to use the term "political" when he explained the purpose of the ad, but admits that they wanted to attack homophobia. "Our customers include all kinds of people - even gay men and lesbians. This was a way of directing our advertising campaign towards a segment of our circle of customers." The ad is part of a campaign in which recipes for food are coupled to sexual and sensual symbols: a cakes in the form of breasts, eel sandwiches with seaweed, to remind of the games men and women have the physical resources to play. "If our advertising campaign has contributed to making homosexuals feel strengthened and supported, we are happy," says Mr. Arnborger. But of course, it is a matter of business for Bjorn Borg Underwear. The goal of this campaign is not mainly to "pull in the dough" as Mr. Arnborger expresses it. It is more a matter of marketing the name by daring to stick out their chin further than other companies. What does Bjorn Borg himself think about the use of his name in connection with wheaten cocks and partnership for homosexuals? "Bjorn Borg has seen the advertising campaign," says Mr. Arnborger. "He thought it was very good and gave it his full support."