Iceland Legalizes Gay Marriage

The nation of Iceland, which is the only country with an openly gay prime minister, voted unanimously on Friday to legalize same-sex marriage.

The Althingi parliament voted 49-0 to change the wording of its marriage legislation to include same-sex couples.

Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson, a political scientist at the University of Iceland, told Reuters that the country is fairly pragmatic, and that the international press made a bigger deal out of the sexual orientation of lesbian Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir than the domestic news outlets.

Gay marriage, Kristinsson said, "has not been a big issue in national politics — it's not been controversial."

The Protestant church of Iceland has not yet decided whether to allow gay and lesbians to marry in its buildings.