EUROPE/SPAIN - Statement issued by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Spain with regard to marriage between homosexuals: “The State cannot recognise a non existent right except by acting in an arbitrary manner which oversteps its competencies and will cause serious harm to the common good”

Madrid (Fides Service) - Yesterday, 21 April, a Bill to Reform the Civil Code and allow marriage between two persons of the same sex was approved by the lower house of the Spanish parliament with 183 votes in favour and 136 against and 6 abstentions. The Bill intends to alter the Civil Code in 16 articles but the main changes consist in changing the wording, using ‘spouse’ instead of husband or wife and ‘progenitor’ instead of father or mother. To article 44 it adds the following statement: "Marriage will have the same requisites and effects whether the spouses are of the same or different sex". This statement opens the way for adoption of minors, an attack on innocent children and one of the most serious consequences of the Bill. Approved also an amendment to hasten the process divorce which will no longer require a time of separation but can be obtained immediately at the request of one partner only and against which the other partner cannot object.
The Spanish Bishops’ Conference issued a press statement on “The parliamentary discussion on the proposed unjust Law on Marriage” in which it says the law is “radically unjust and harmful to the common good” it presupposes the introduction of “a dangerous factor of dissolution of the matrimonial institution and proper social order”. “It is not right for two people of the same sex to want to marry - the Bishops say -. The laws which prevent this are not discriminatory. Instead, a law which treats a union of people of the same sex in the same way as marriage would be an unjust and discriminatory”.
The Bishops say in the statement that homosexuals, “like heterosexuals are gifted with an inalienable dignity of all human persons”. This means they cannot be less valued or suffer discrimination and they have the same human rights. But at the same time “they should remember that marriage can only be contracted by two persons of a different sex” and that “people of the same sex have no right to marry”. Thus “the state cannot recognise a right which is non existent except in an arbitrary manner, which oversteps its competencies and will seriously harm the common good."
The Bishops mention the anthropological, social and juridical reasons which support their position. “Marriage as an institutional expression of the love of husband and wife who are realised as persons and generate and educate their children, is the irreplaceable foundation for the growth and stability of society ", therefore “to equal a homosexual union to marriage, would be to introduce a dangerous factor of dissolution of the matrimonial institution and at the same time proper social order".
The Christian Churches and main religious confessions in Spain issued a joint statement demanding that no changes be made to the juridical status of marriage because heterosexual marriage is part of Jewish-Christian tradition and the tradition of other religious confessions. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 22/4/2005)