Gays against same sex marriage research

Along with New Zealand, Australia became the second country in the Asia-Pacific region to to make same-sex marriage legal. Same-sex couples in Canada gained most of the legal benefits of marriage in when the federal and provincial governments extended common law marriages to gay and lesbian couples. The largest religious group in the country, the Lutheran-affiliated Church of Norway, initially voted to prohibit its pastors from conducting same-sex weddings. Before the ruling, 36 states and the District of Columbia had legalized same-sex marriage. It passed despite resistance from members of the Christian Democratic Party and the Progress Party, as well as a public controversy over state funding for fertility treatments for lesbian couples. The long-dominant Christian Democratic Party, traditionally allied with the Catholic Church, was out of power when the parliament passed the measure. Support for the law came from both the Flemish-speaking North and the French-speaking South, and the law generated surprisingly little controversy across the country.