Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, (photo below) who is the Pagan high priest of The Ásatrúarfélag in Iceland, says that they have received negative reaction to the tolerate beliefs and attitudes of Icelandic members of the religion.
Foreign pagans strongly disapprove of Icelandic liberal tolerance, and as a result, have received lots of hate-mail from overseas because of Icelandic religious respect for gay rights and for the struggle to allow same-sex couples to marry.
They've responded by saying, "I think we represent Icelandic society. And the nation has stood with us through thick and thin."
"Ásatrú has no room for conservative Christian morality."
Hilmar adds that he and other members of the religion are not interested in using the ancient religion of Ásatrú and it's machismo, or to inject the practice of Ásatrú with conservative Christian morality:
"We know these texts; we have lived with these texts for a thousand years. We are not coating them in some Viking or warrior romanticism. And we are not obsessing over some books on morality, dating back to the year 70AD, as many of these foreign practitioners of Ásatrú do, considering that book a source on how the ancient religion should be practiced."
The temple will be the first central pagan temple to be built in the Nordic countries in nearly a a thousand years.
