[Mb-civic] Madrid legalises gay marriages - Ftimes

[Michael Butler]

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Madrid legalises gay marriages
>By Leslie Crawford in Madrid
>Published: June 30 2005 17:22 | Last updated: June 30 2005 17:22
>>

Spain on Thursday legalised gay marriage and granted same-sex couples the
right to adopt children and inherit property from each other, despite
protests from conservative groups and the Roman Catholic church.

The law makes Spain only the third country in the world, after Belgium and
the Netherlands, to recognise gay unions. Canada will be next. Its Senate is
expected later this month to ratify a gay marriage bill, passed by the House
of Commons on Tuesday.

In Madrid, gay activists celebrated the vote by waving rainbow flags and
kissing outside the Cortes, or national parliament. José Luis Rodríguez
Zapatero, Spain's Socialist prime minister, said the law ushered in ³a more
decent society, which does not humiliate some of its citizens.²

Since taking office in April last year, Mr Zapatero has legalised stem-cell
research, made divorce easier and introduced tough penalties against wife
battering. Later this year, the government plans to loosen restrictions on
abortion and draft a gender equality bill to end discrimination against
women in the workforce, mandating equal pay for equal work.

But the gay marriage bill was the most controversial of the prime minister's
liberal social agenda, and it has become the focus of a conservative
backlash in Spain.

Spanish bishops have denounced gay marriage as ³the greatest threat to the
Roman Catholic church in 2,000 years². Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela,
archbishop of Madrid, led a protest march in June that was attended by more
than 160,000 people. Traditional family groups tried to halt the vote in
parliament on Thursday with a petition signed by 600,000 opponents of the
law.

Mariano Rajoy, leader of the opposition Popular party, on Thursday said he
would challenge the gay marriage law in Spain's Constitutional Court.

Polls show a majority of Spaniards approve of gay marriage (although they
have reservations about gays being allowed to adopt children), in a sign of
how attitudes have changed since the restoration of democracy, 25 years ago.

However, a growing number of critics initially sympathetic to the Socialist
government believe Mr Zapatero is focusing on social reforms to the
detriment of more pressing problems.

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