Johanna Sigurdardottir is a 66 year old openly gay woman, she is also the new Prime Minister of Iceland. PM Sigurdardottir was elected as the first openly lesbian head of state in the world. This comes at a time when much of western Europe is changing its views on sexual orientation. Many people in Iceland feel that her sexual orientation is a non issue and indeed it seems the rest of the world is making a much bigger deal out of this historical moment than the country it occurred in. This is encouraging to the many government official that have recently come-out and other openly gay and lesbian people running in upcoming elections. A tide is turning in Western European politics when sexual orientation is no longer a concern for over 72% of Spanish voters; even with Spain being a predominately catholic country. With this latest election in Iceland many people were much more excited about the fact that men and women were now equally represented in parliament. While these examples show progress at it's best, their is still a long road ahead, particularly in eastern Europe. The former soviet counties are much behind the rest of Europe in the areas of civil rights and social progress. One can only hope that these significant milestones in gay and lesbian rights spread quickly throughout the whole of Europe and onto the rest of the world.
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