Norway Adopts Same-Sex Marriage Policy: Sperm Donor Must Be Identified

"This decision is of an importance comparable to universal suffrage and our law on parity," Labour Party rapporteur Gunn Karin Gjul said during the debate.

The most controversial part of the law is that which gives lesbians the right to be artificially inseminated. The sperm donor must be identified so that the child can seek out his or her biological father at the age of 18.

"We are now creating a system where the father is reduced to a sperm sample," lamented Ulf Erik Knudsen, a member of the far-right.

Outside the parliament, a handful of opponents protested with posters reading "Have fathers become superfluous?" and "Parliament has no mandate to change the laws of nature."

Among other things, the new legislation replaces a so-called "partnership law" adopted in 1993 which gave Norwegian homosexuals the right to civil unions.

Health care workers who do not want to perform artificial inseminations on lesbians because of their personal convictions will not be under any obligation to carry out the procedure.

The new law is expected to enter into force at the end of this year or early next year.