Norway minister weds gay partner

OSLO, Norway -- Norway's Finance Minister Per-Kristian Foss has married his gay partner in a ceremony at the country's embassy in Oslo.

Foss, whose Lutheran party chief clergyman Kjell Magne Bondevik is opposed to homosexual marriages, wed long-term partner Jan Erik Knarbakk.

The Conservative politician becomes the first member of a Norwegian government to enter a binding same sex partnership.

Gays and lesbians can enter legal partnerships with all the rights and obligations of marriage, with the exception of adoption and church weddings, under a 1993 law.

Knarbakk is a top manager in the Schibsted publishing concern and the two have been described in the news media as being among Norway's most powerful couples.

The Norwegian Finance Ministry confirmed the wedding had taken place but said Foss was giving no interviews or comment because it is a personal matter.

"Yes, we entered a partnership at the embassy in Stockholm on Friday, January 4," Foss told the Norwegian business newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv. "But beyond that, it is a private matter."

Foss is a member of a three-party coalition government led by Bondevik of the Christian Democratic party.

However, Foss was openly gay and living with his partner when he joined the government and it was not an issue in his appointment to the powerful post of finance minister.

Norwegians are broadly tolerant of homosexuals and traditionally respect the private lives of public figures so the wedding was simply noted briefly, without comment, by the news media.

About 100 couples a year enter gay partnerships in the capital city of Oslo.