Queer royalty can have same-sex marriage and rule, says Sweden
Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and Prince Daniel of Sweden. (Stefano Guidi / Getty)
Sweden has confirmed that same-sex marriage would not prohibit a monarch or a heir to the throne from retaining his right to rule.
According to a report in Aftonbladet newspaper, Marshal Fredrik Wersäll confirmed that the Swedish government would not treat same-sex marriage of a Swedish prince or princess differently than any other marriage.
The prince or princess must seek the consent of the government to marry in order to retain his place in the succession to the throne, but a queer royal would not have to choose between the throne or his sexual identity, it has now been confirmed.
This comes days after Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte made a similar clarification about the Dutch royal family.
“The cabinet does not see that an heir to the throne or the king should abdicate if he or she wants to marry a partner of the same sex,” Rutte said.
But there is still a question mark over the descendants of a hypothetical queer monarch.
In both the Netherlands and Sweden, the monarch can only be succeeded by a “legal descendant”. Rutte said it was “not appropriate now to anticipate such a consideration of the legacy”, and the government would “cross the bridge” when it came to that.
“It depends very much on the facts and circumstances of the specific case, which you can see by looking back at how family law can change over time,” he said, referring to the recent change in absolute primogenite, which abolished the rule which has meant that men have had precedence over older female siblings in the line of succession.
The Netherlands legalized same-sex marriage in 2001 and became the first country in the world to do so, while Sweden legalized same-sex marriage in 2009.
At present, Crown Princess Victoria is the heir to the Swedish monarchy.