The Church Of Norway Has Formally Apologized To The LGBTQ Community For Decades Of Discrimination
The church's presiding biship Olav Fykse Tveit said that the church’s words and actions have caused “shame, great harm and pain”, adding that this “should not have happened.”
The Church of Norway has formally apologized to the LGBTQ community for decades of discrimination.
In the 1950s, the Church had called gay people a “global social danger” and banned same-sex weddings and gay clergy.
Now decades later, the church's presiding bishop Olav Fykse Tveit has apologized at Oslo’s London Pub, a well-known LGBTQ venue that was targeted in an attack that killed two people and injured 9 others during Pride celebrations in 2022.
Speaking on Oct. 16, Tveit said that the church’s words and actions have caused “shame, great harm and pain”, adding that this “should not have happened.”
Later that night, Oslo Cathedral held a service at the same church that once banned same-sex marriage.
Norway was the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage in 2009.
It ordained gay pastors in 2007 and opened weddings to same-sex couples in 2017.
In 2023, Tveit became the first presiding bishop to march in Oslo Pride.
Rights groups called the apology “strong and meaningful” but came too late for those lost to AIDS, when the church called it “God’s punishment.”
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