(Stockholm) If the Swedish Parliament accepts a government funded report recommending it amend its civil unions law to allow same-sex couples to marry the Church of Sweden says it will perform marriage ceremonies.

Even if lawmakers decide to maintain civil unions the Church said it will conduct ceremonies for gay couples, and those ceremonies would be the same as a wedding liturgy except the word marriage would be amended for gay couples to state union.

The decision by the Church's leaders makes the Swedish denomination one of only a handful in the world to conduct gay marriages. In Canada the United Church -- that country's largest Protestant denomination -- conducts same-sex marriages, along with some Reform Synagogues and the Unitarian Church and the Metropolitan Community Churches. Unitarian and MCC churches also perform gay marriages in Massachusetts -- the only state in the US where same-sex marriage currently is legal.

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That the Church accepted the recommendations of the government report before it is presented to Parliament is expected to put considerable pressure on lawmakers to approve the gay marriage plan.