Jörmundur Ingi Hansen, former high chieftain of Ásatrúarfélagid (a religious organization for those who believe in the pagan Icelandic/Nordic gods), has criticized the new laws on religious associations being able to confirm cohabitation between individuals of the same sex for being too vague and not really including marital rights.

“The laws on confirmed cohabitation are mostly an optical illusion,” Hansen told Fréttabladid. “They neither give gay people nor straight people any rights to my best knowledge.”

“Various people have claimed they give the same rights as marriage, but that is unfortunately not true. They do not include a reversionary right and do not provide the kind of safety that marriage is supposed to provide,” Hansen explained.

According to Hansen, if gay couples have their relationships validated by religious associations, it is only an empty ceremony.

Separate laws are valid for the confirmation on cohabitation for straight and gay couples and the traditional definition of marriage, as a union between a man and a woman, remains unchanged. In October 2007, the State Church decided not to change the traditional definition of marriage.

“I think it is poor behavior to make people believe that this is marriage when it isn’t,” Hansen said, adding, “If confirmed cohabitation is supposed to be such a good thing then why can’t priests confirm the cohabitation of straight couples?”

“Until now I have not had the right to confirm the cohabitation of a man and a woman. There is no law that states that the cohabitation of two individuals of the opposite sex can be confirmed,” Hansen claimed.

“I just don’t understand what the legislator is trying to achieve with this. It is like a band-aid for an undefined wound,” Hansen concluded.

Click here to read about the first gay couple in Iceland to have their cohabitation confirmed in church.