Re: What is the most secular & sexually liberal country in the world?
Reply #124 - January 13, 2011, 09:51 AM
Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands, I'd say.
Sweden, Norway, Iceland, the Netherlands and Belgium make five of the ten countries that have gay marriage currently.
Even the Swedish church is homo-loving by-and-large, on 22 October 2009, the assembly of the Church of Sweden, voted strongly in favour of giving its blessing to homosexual couples, including the use of the term marriage, ("matrimony"). The new law was introduced on November 1, 2009 and is the first case in the world.
The majority of support from a poll in 2006 about support of gay marriage came from the Netherlands (82%), Sweden (71%), Denmark (69%), Belgium (62%), Luxembourg (58%), Spain (56%), Germany (52%) and Czech Republic (52%). Support was found to be highest amongst women, the younger generation, and the more highly educated people.
I don't know how you'd define secular, but secular in the sense that religion plays little to no role in public society would again lead me to believe that the Scandinavian countries would probably win out, or the Netherlands, I know that the Dutch church attendance is in the single-digits.
Oh, and of course, Eastern European countries probably...