Dispatches from the Creation Wars

Spain Legalizes Gay Marriage

Posted by Ed Brayton on June 30, 2005
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Fast on the heels of Canada, Spain has given final approval to the legalization of gay marriage:

“Today, Spanish society is responding to a group of people who have been humiliated, whose rights have been ignored, their dignity offended, their identity denied and their freedom restricted,” Prime Minister José Luis Rodíguez Zapatero told Parliament.

There is opposition to this idea within Spain, of course. And some of their ideas are absolutely stunning:

The mayor of Valladolid, Francisco Javier León de la Riva, has said that he will not carry out the new law, and Catholic leaders have called on government officials to become conscientious objectors and to refuse to participate in any events involving the marriage of homosexual couples.

Shortly after the preliminary vote in April, the archbishop of Barcelona, Cardinal Ricard María Carlés Gordó, compared government workers opposing the law but agreeing to carry it out to the Nazis at Auschwitz, who “believed that they had to obey the laws of the Nazi government before their own conscience.”

You know, given that A) Spain was the home of Torquemada’s inquisition, B) Spain was once ruled by the fascist dictator Franco, and C) the Catholic Church has had to apologize for its alliance of convenience with Hitler’s regime, you’d think the Archbishop of Barcelona would be the last one on earth who would want to invoke a Nazi reference in this context. And can you imagine an elected official saying that government employees should engage in civil disobedience by refusing to give legal marriage licenses to interracial couples?

Bravo to Spain, and to Canada. I will guarantee you that despite the ridiculous and hyperbolic rhetoric from the American right about how gay marriage will destroy traditional marriage, nothing much will change in either country except that gay couples will now enjoy the same legal protections that straight couples do. The “moral fabric” (whatever the hell that is) will not collapse, people won’t stop getting married or stop having children. Nothing much will change at all except for those who are actually IN gay marriages. And they’re the only ones that really matter.

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Comments

  1. #1 Kathy Britain
    June 30, 2005

    Ed wrote: The “moral fabric” (whatever the hell that is) will not collapse,…

    Moral fabric, is it a polyester or a cotton blend? Will it not collapse because they used too much starch? LOL

  2. #2 Matthew
    June 30, 2005

    I predict the fundamentalists start calling the spanish commies, unable to distinguish between western european socialism and leninism. That will be the excuse for why this passes.

  3. #3 Bill Ware
    June 30, 2005

    Hooraah!

    …nothing much will change in either country except that gay couples will now enjoy the same legal protections that straight couples do.

    …and their children.

  4. #4 CPT_Doom
    July 5, 2005

    And can you imagine an elected official saying that government employees should engage in civil disobedience by refusing to give legal marriage licenses to interracial couples?

    Perhaps a better analogy is that of divorced people remarrying – which is also a major sin in Catholicism. Although I believe some bishops have said judges should refuse to preside over divorce cases (although, morally speaking, the divorce is not the issue, it is the remarriage), I don’t see the Catholic church working nearly as hard to remove civil marriage rights from heterosexuals who have been divorced; even in Spain, where the government also made divorce easier this year.

    I am not saying such opposition would be correct for the Catholic church, but it would be more consistent. As it is, the church is specifically highlighting gay couples as uniquely dangerous, and Ed is completely right that such rhetoric is breathtakingly stupid coming from this church.

  5. #5 whatever
    July 7, 2005

    Right on! Next we should legalize polygamy and incest!

  6. #6 Matthew
    July 7, 2005

    whatever: I’m not sure if you were being sarcastic or serious. You’re using the common slippery slope rhetoric used by the anti-gay movement. But in this instance you picked a poor example; those both should be legalized, provided all parties are consenting adults. But unfortunately that’s pretty far down the line; society still has a long way to go before the gay/lesbian taboo disappears.