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Spain Legalizes Homosexual 'Marriage,' Delays Abortion Vote to 2005

MADRID, October 4, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Spain's ruling Socialist government approved a bill to legalize same-sex "marriage" Friday. Approval of the measure by parliament is expected in January, which would make Spain the third European country to legalize homosexual nuptials.

Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, criticized the proposition on Vatican Radio, calling it a "sad step." He said, "They present it as if it were a conquest of modernity and of democracy, but really they are falling into deep dehumanization".

"The Church has nothing to say about it," Beatriz Gimeno, president of the country's Gay, Lesbian and Transexuals Federation, told the AFP. "This interventionist tendency by the Church is the virus and must be eradicated," referring to a comment Tuesday by Spanish Bishops' Conference spokesman Juan Antonio Martínez Camino. Camino said legalizing same-sex marriage is akin to "imposing a virus on society, something false that will have negative consequences for social life," according to an AP report.

The same bill adopts a measure allowing adoption by same-sex parents.

Cardinal Trujillo, in response to this proposition, said, "They say that there are lots of studies by psychologists which show that children are happy in this type of couple, but that's a lie, because we have different studies which show the contrary."

Meanwhile, a proposal to liberalize Spain's abortion laws has been shelved until the new year. Currently, Spain's abortion laws permit mothers to abort their children if the mother's life is in danger, or for rape or fetal abnormality.

The Socialist ruling party proposed a change to the law, suggesting that abortion should be allowed "when, in the judgment of the woman, pregnancy would result in personal, family or social conflict." Socialist Pilar Lopez said that though the party concurs with the idea, "now is not the time" for the change. He said the government will wait until the new year to present the change as part of a review of Spain's Penal Code.

The socialists are also promoting passage of a "sexual health law" to promote contraceptive education for teens, for the alleged purpose of preventing unwanted pregnancy.

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