Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Madrid (Fides Service) - Benigno Blanco Vice president of the Spanish Family Forum promoter of today’s pro-family demonstration in Madrid to defend real marriage told Fides that the proposed law to allow homosexual ‘marriages’ is clearly unconstitutional. He said the demonstration in Madrid does not intend to attack anyone but solely to defend the natural and authentic family
What causes and goals are at the origin of this policy against life and the family being imposed in Spain and many other countries?
It is not easy to say in a few words. At the risk of oversimplifying I would underline in these anti-family policies the influence of the ideologies of the 20th century: a mixture of practical Marxism which saw in the family a power structure which denied full freedom of some of its members the mother and child; a post-Freudian vision which fails to understand the finality of love and sexuality within the context of marriage and the family; a varnish of anthropological existential pessimism which prevents people from understanding the sense of personal commitment towards others which always exists in the family.
This mixture of ideas combined with a desire to exalt the individual as sole source of ethics leads to the view that religion and all that its binds, sexual morals, marriage etc - is the last barrier to eliminate in order to achieve full freedom. This is the ideological background I perceive in the arguments put forward by the Spanish government even if very often they themselves ignore the source of their inspiration.
Spain is considering giving same sex unions the same status as marriage. Can a law be allowed to overturn the law of nature? Why are they in such a hurry to legalise these unions?
If everything is marriage then nothing is marriage. The most serious juridical consequence of this law is that the term "matrimony" will refer to a wide range of situations and relations between adults who feel affection for one another and intend to have sexual relations. This means that marriage in the strict sense will disappear from the law, it will no longer have specific regulations. Making same sex unions equal to marriage will not solve the problem of homosexuals being deprived of rights - because they are not denied the right to marry, instead they choose not to exercise this right, like priests for example - what the law will do is to deprive matrimony of juridical regulations.
A law cannot go against the law of nature without making the latter illegal: in this case it makes matrimony illegal. This haste to pass a law is the haste to legitimate in front of public opinion homosexuality and attack the family seen as a ‘structure of oppression’ by those who want sexuality without brakes or responsibility,.
Some say this law is clearly unconstitutional. Why?
There is a widespread opinion among the most serious jurists in Spain that this law is unconstitutional. This has been affirmed by former President of the Constitutional Court Rodríguez Bererijo, and many magistrates and university professors. The most consistent argument on the unconstitutionality of the law has been put forward by two major bodies: the Council of State and the General Council of Judicial Power. Both separately advised the government to withdraw the law because article 32 of the Spanish Constitution guarantees the institution of matrimony as a right of every man and woman. This makes it impossible for any ordinary legislator to change the essential nature of marriage as the union of a man and woman. The Spanish Family Forum has urged the Popular Party, the only one which can do it because it has 50 MPs, to appeal to the Constitutional Court if the law is approved.
If homosexual couples are allow to adopt a child will this not be a case of injustice and violence against children the most vulnerable citizens, and an injustice protected by law?
This would be a radical overturning of the principles which inspire the institution of adoption. At the moment adoption is a means of giving a minor who has lost his parents what he has lost, a mother and a father. Tomorrow it would be a means to allow certain adults to fulfil their own selfish desires with no regard for the child concerned. This is most serious: it is natural for the human species to live with a father and mother: assigning a child to grow up with two mothers or two fathers would be a social experiment using a child. A couple of homosexual men may be two good fathers but they cannot be a mother. Two lesbian women can be two good mothers but they are not a father. In Spain, under the direction of psychiatrist Dr. Aquilino Polaino a study was made of all the existing writings on the experience of a minor living with two homosexuals. The conclusion was clear: it is not advisable for both medical and psychiatric reasons.
Another problem in Spain is a debate on a new law on divorce. What is the new law about and what will be the consequences ?
The new law on divorce will mean that divorce may be obtained as early as three months after the wedding by one of the partners without presenting any reason and even if the other partner refuses. Hitherto a judge could grant permission for divorce only if serious reasons, violence, cruelty, drug abuse, abandonment of conjugal roof, etc, were presented or after a period of separation accorded by a judge and not less than two consecutive years. In this way Spain goes from a remedy system of divorce to a unilateral free divorce without causes. This reform will mean that Spain’s judicial system no longer has any means which sustain the stability of marriage. With this law the legislator privatises the institution of marriage to the point that it is difficult to distinguish from unions. There is little public debate on the law because the immeasurable gravity of the so-called ‘gay marriage’ law has drawn all our attention. Both laws together represent an open attempt to destroy marriage. (R.G.) (Agenzia Fides 18/6/2005, righe 83, parole 1.058)
