Same-sex marriage in the Faroe Islands Same-sex marriage in the Faroe Islands Same-sex marriage has been legal in the Faroe Islands, an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, since 1 July 2017. Legislation allowing civil same-sex marriage and adoption was approved by the Løgting on 29 April 2016. The Danish Parliament approved the necessary legislative adaptations on 25 April, and the law received royal assent on 3 May 2017 and went into effect on 1 July 2017. Denmark's registered partnership law was never adopted in the Faroe Islands. Same-sex marriage legislation first appeared in the Løgting after the Tórshavn gay pride parade in 2012. A
Faroe Islands "sýslur" (similar to the British "shire": Norðoyar, Eysturoy, Streymoy, Vágar, Sandoy, and Suðuroy). Although today "sýsla" technically means "police district", the term is still commonly used to indicate a geographical region. In earlier times, each "sýsla" had its own assembly, the so-called "várting" ("spring assembly"). The Faroe Islands have been under Norwegian/Danish control since 1388. The 1814 Treaty of Kiel terminated the Danish-Norwegian union, and Norway came under the rule of the King of Sweden, while the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland remained Danish possessions. From ancient times the Faroe Islands had a parliament ("Løgting"), which was abolished in 1816,