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MADRID, April 27, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Several of Spain’s mayors have come out against the latest move by elected officials to legalize same-sex “marriage” for the country, vowing they will not perform the ceremonies.

“Even if the law allows me to marry homosexuals, I will not exercise this authority,” said Javier Leon de la Riva, mayor of Valladolid, according to an Expatica report. Mayors of Avila and Leon have also said they would refuse to perform the ceremonies, despite a statement from the government’s second-highest ranking official, Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, who warned that “public servants must apply the laws that the government proposes and that the parliament approves.”

Last week, Spain’s lower house passed a bill legalizing same-sex “marriage”– before becoming law. The measure requires Senate approval, expected in a few months. Passage of the law would make Spain one of only two countries in the world, including the Netherlands, which has legalized both same-sex “marriage” and adoption by homosexuals.

The Vatican’s head of the Pontifical Council on the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, meanwhile, weighed in on the matter, calling on Spain’s mayors and municipal officials to refuse to perform the ceremonies, even if it meant dismissal. “A law as profoundly iniquitous as this one is not an obligation, it cannot be an obligation,” he said. “One cannot say that a law is right simply because it is law.”

Zenit news added Cardinal Trujillo’s comments, as seen in the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera: “What is being done in Spain, moreover with a restricted majority, is the destruction of the family, brick by brick.”

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Spanish Upper House Approves Gay “Marriage” and No-Fault Divorce

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