An unjust law” “

With 183 votes in favour, 136 against and 6 abstentions the Spanish lower house of parliament, the Congress of Deputies, approved on 21 April the “Bill for the Reform of the Civil Code” which in effect gives the green light to homosexual unions. In substance the text of the bill introduces amendments to the Civil Code in 16 articles, and provides for the words “husband” and “wife” to be replaced with “spouses” and the words “father” and “mother” with “parents”. The following statement is also inserted in article 44: “Marriage shall have the same requisites and effects if both spouses are of the same sex or of different sex”. The new law means that homosexual couples would be eligible to adopt children. The bill’s amendments to the Civil Code also facilitate the processes of separation and divorce: no longer will separation be necessary prior to proceeding to divorce; it will be enough for one of the spouses not to wish the continuation of the marriage to file for a divorce, without the other spouse being able to oppose the application. The reaction of the Catholic Church was not slow in coming and was entrusted to a document with the title “In response to the parliamentary debate of an unjust law on marriage”. The other Christian Churches have supported the Catholic Church. DAMAGING TO THE COMMON GOOD. “An unjust law, damaging to the common good” write the bishops in their document. The bill, they say, introduces “a dangerous factor of dissolution of the institution of matrimony and of the social order. It is not right that two persons of the same sex should claim the right to get married. That the law should prevent them from doing so does not presuppose any discrimination. On the contrary, it would be unjust and discriminatory if genuine marriage between a man and a woman were to be treated on a par with the union of persons of the same sex”. Homosexuals, who are endowed – stress the bishops –, “like everyone else, with the inalienable dignity that belongs to every human being”, have “the duty to recognize that marriage can only be contracted by persons of different sex” and that “persons of the same sex have no right to marry each other”. Consequently “the State cannot recognize this non-existent right. Were it to do so, it would be acting in an arbitrary fashion that infringes its powers and that would undoubtedly cause grave harm to the common good”. “Marriage, as the institutional expression of the love of spouses who fulfil themselves as persons and who procreate and bring up children, is the irreplaceable basis of the growth and stability of society”. Therefore – continue the bishops – to “equate homosexual unions with real marriages is to introduce a dangerous factor of dissolution of the institution of marriage and, with it, of the just social order”. AN ATTACK ON THE FAMILY. “The approval of the bill that regulates homosexual marriage constitutes a real attack on the family”, says Father José Luis Mendoza Pérez, president of the Catholic University of Murcia (UCAM), and consultor of the Pontifical Council for the Family, in a statement to the international Fides Agency. “Homosexual ‘marriage’ constitutes an immoral fact and is contrary to the natural law. It is a real abomination in the eyes of God”. According to Mendoza, all this will be greatly injurious to society and represents a violent attack on innocent children, to whom it will cause grave moral harm, because they have a need for a father and a mother to be brought up in a balanced and proper way. The bill is an attack on society, whose fundamental nucleus is the family”. MARRIAGE, FUNDAMENTAL INSTITUTION. An appeal “not to change the structure of marriage”, and not to make it accessible to “persons of the same sex”, is made by the main religious confessions in Spain, through a joint communiqué, signed not only by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, but also by the Federation of Jewish Communities, the Federation of the evangelical religious communities and by the Orthodox Church. “On the occasion of the parliamentary debate on the bill amending the civil code in terms of the right to contract marriage – says the communiqué – the Christian Churches and religious confessions intend to reaffirm that heterosexual monogamous marriage forms part of the Judeo-Christian tradition and that of the other religious confessions and in its basic structure has been and remains a fundamental institution of the history of our societies”. Any amendment – warn the Spanish churches and religious confessions – requires a profound reflection, wide-ranging dialogue and social consensus, as in the case of reforms to important institutions of the State”.