How a head of government married on the first day of marriage equality

On 27 June 2010, Iceland's new gender-neutral marriage law came into force, and the head of government, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, used the very first day to marry her long-term partner.

A few weeks earlier, on 11 June 2010, the Icelandic parliament, the Althing, had passed the amendment by 49 votes to 0. Not a single member voted against, and polls showed broad public support. The reform redefined marriage as a union of two people and made every reference in marriage law gender-neutral. This made the registered partnership for same-sex couples, which had existed since 1996, superfluous. President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson signed the law on 22 June, and it came into force five days later.

Iceland thus became the ninth country in the world where same-sex couples could marry, after the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden and Portugal. It was the seventh in Europe and the third among the Nordic countries, after Norway and Sweden.

The day gained a special touch from the person at the head of the state. Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir had been Prime Minister since February 2009 and is regarded as the first openly gay head of government of modern times. She and her partner, the writer Jónína Leósdóttir, had already entered into a registered partnership in 2002. On 27 June 2010 the two simply had this partnership converted into a marriage, making them among the first couples to be married under the new law. There was no grand ceremony: legal equality itself was the real message. Equal rights should also bear the same name.

Today Iceland is one of the countries with the most far-reaching rights for queer people in the world and regularly tops international rankings.