Jens Rydström:
"Can there be no exceptional status for exceptional people?" The Law on Registered Partnership, its history and implications.

In this article, the author discusses the implications of the Scandinavian partnership laws. Why were the Nordic countries first in the world to create an exceptional marital status for same-sex couples? The answers are to be found in the specific history of the Scandinavian welfare states' emphasis on equality and fairness, combined with a high degree of political organisation by gay men and lesbians. In the 1980s, the efforts to fight AIDS gave gay and lesbian activists access to the public sphere and forced politicians to come to terms with issues of homosexuality. Scandinavian tolerance towards homosexuality, however, is coupled with measures of control and discipline. Nordic societies still attempt to reserve the privilege of reproduction for heterosexuality: same-sex cohabitation is accepted, but lesbian women are still denied access to modern reproductive technology. While the effects of partnership laws may well be a destabilisation of heterosexual family values and a liberation of alternative interpretations, they need to be resisted to the extent they widen the gap between the "respectable" and the "deviant".