Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

(COMTEX) B: Spanish bishops press assault on gay marriage law ( EFE )

Madrid, May 6, 2005 (EFE via COMTEX) -- Spain's Roman Catholic hierarchy
escalated Friday its assault on legislation providing for gay marriage, saying
that if passed - as is expected - it would not be "a real law, because it would
contradict upright reasoning and the moral norm."

The Spanish Bishops's Conference described the bill - which is supported by the
Socialist government, has been passed by the lower house and is expected to be
passed in the coming weeks by the Senate - as "a retreat along the path of
civilization."

Alluding to the senators now weighing the measure, the bishops said that
Catholics, which a large majority of Spaniards profess to be, cannot vote in
favor of same-sex marriage.

In a statement issued by their executive committee, the prelates said the
measure under consideration "would lack the character of a real law, because it
would contradict upright reasoning and the moral norm."

They also maintained that even if enacted, the law would have no force.

"Every individual could claim the right to conscientious objection," the bishops
said. "Opposing immoral regulations, ones that are contrary to reason, is not to
go against anyone, but rather in favor of the love of truth and of the welfare
of every person."

The pronouncement from the bishops's conference became public after several
mayors, who often preside over marriages here, said they would refuse to conduct
weddings for homosexual or lesbian couples.

The government of Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero warned
that public officials may not decline to apply a law, and that those who do so
could face removal from office.

According to a Sociological Research Center poll conducted October-November of
last year, 57 percent of Spaniards approve of same-sex marriage, 32 percent are
opposed and 11 percent don't know or did not reply.

Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said after the Cabinet
approved the final draft of the bill in late December that far from threatening
the institution of marriage, the legislation "strengthens it by making room for
and taking in groups of people who are equal to everyone else."

If the law gains final passage, Spain will become the third nation, after
Belgium and the Netherlands, to legalize gay marriage.

The bishops, in Friday's communique, argued that only a union between a man and
a woman can be called a marriage. They said the bill before the Senate
"signifies a flagrant negation of fundamental anthropological facts and a
genuine subversion of the most basic principles of social order."

"It is not true that this norm expands any right, because the union of persons
of the same sex cannot be marriage. What it does is corrupt the institution of
matrimony," the clerics continued.

The statement also expressed sadness for "the harm that will be caused to
children given in adoption to those false marriages."

In closing, the Catholic bishops said it was their duty "to speak out clearly
when elements in Spain try to lead a retreat along the path of civilization with
an unprecedented legal regulation that is gravely damaging to the fundamental
rights of the married couple and the family, of youths and of educators."

Late last month, the Vatican blasted the pending Spanish legislation and called
on Spaniards to exercise "conscientious objection" to the law.

The official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, said that "nobody has the
right to alter ... (the) essence and identity" of marriage, which it asserted
that the law "destroys." EFE

mvf/dr

http://www.efe.es

Copyright (C) 2005. Agencia EFE S.A.

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